I walk around the small decorative lake at Vitruvian Park, an apartment development next to my townhome. I have seen many different kinds of activities around this lake — early morning exercise classes with kettle bells, football drill guides and stretchy bands; 20-somethings on rollerblades or skateboards; families on bicycles; dog walkers with multiple dogs; yoga; and fishing. Today I spot another fisherman trying his luck. Am not sure if the lake is stocked with fish, but I don’t think so because it is rare to see people fishing. My limited experience fishing includes placing some kind of smelly bait called “Catfish Charlie” on a hook. I think I prefer feeling the gentle rock of a small boat while waiting for a tug on the line. That kind of peaceful existence can be sublime — as long as someone else baits the hook. However, I am eternally grateful for the efforts of people who fish because I am a mostly pescatarian. The bulk of my diet consists of salmon, cod, swordfish, tuna, Dover sole and steelhead trout.
According to Wikipedia, fishing is an ancient practice that dates back to at least the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic period about 40,000 years ago. Isotopic analysis of the skeletal remains of Tianyuan man, a 40,000-year-old modern human from eastern Asia, has shown that he regularly consumed freshwater fish. Archaeology features such as shell middens or old dumps for domestic waste, discarded fish bones and cave paintings show that sea foods were important for survival and consumed in significant quantities. Fishing in Africa is evident very early on in human history. Neanderthals were fishing by about 200,000 BC. People could have developed basketry for fish traps, along with spinning and early forms of knitting to make fishing nets to be able to catch more fish in larger quantities.
During this period, most people lived a hunter-gatherer lifestyle and were, of necessity, constantly on the move. However, where there are early examples of permanent settlements — though not necessarily permanently occupied — such as those at Lepenski Vir, they are almost always associated with fishing as a major source of food.
The British dogger was an early type of sailing trawler from the 17th century, but the modern fishing trawler was developed in the 19th century, at the English fishing port of Brixham. By the early 19th century, the fishermen at Brixham needed to expand their fishing area further than ever before, due to the ongoing depletion of stocks that was occurring in the overfished waters of South Devon. The Brixham trawler that evolved there was of a sleek build and had a tall gaff rig, which gave the vessel sufficient speed to make long-distance trips out to the fishing grounds in the ocean. They were also sufficiently robust to be able to tow large trawls in deep water. The great trawling fleet that built up at Brixham, earned the village the title of “Mother of Deep-Sea Fisheries.”
This revolutionary design made large scale trawling in the ocean possible for the first time, resulting in a massive migration of fishermen from the ports in the South of England, to villages further north, such as Scarborough, Hull, Grimsby, Harwich and Yarmouth, that were points of access to the large fishing grounds in the Atlantic Ocean.
The small village of Grimsby grew to become the largest fishing port in the world by the mid-19th century. An Act of Parliament was first obtained in 1796, which authorized the construction of new quays and dredging of the Haven to make it deeper. It was only in 1846, with the tremendous expansion in the fishing industry, that the Grimsby Dock Co. was formed. The foundation stone for the Royal Dock was laid by Albert the Prince consort in 1849. The dock covered 25 acres and was formally opened by Queen Victoria in 1854 as the first modern fishing port.
The elegant Brixham trawler spread across the world, influencing fishing fleets everywhere. By the end of the 19th century, there were over 3,000 fishing trawlers in commission in Britain, with almost 1,000 at Grimsby. These trawlers were sold to fishermen around Europe, including from the Netherlands and Scandinavia. Twelve trawlers went on to form the nucleus of the German fishing fleet.
The earliest steam-powered fishing boats first appeared in the 1870s and used the trawl system of fishing as well as lines and drift nets. These were large boats, usually 80–90 feet in length with a beam of around 20 feet. They weighed 40–50 tons and travelled at 10–13 mph. The earliest purpose-built fishing vessels were designed and made by David Allan in Leith, Scotland in March 1875, when he converted a drifter to steam power. In 1877, he built the first screw-propelled steam trawler in the world.
Steam trawlers were introduced at Grimsby and Hull in the 1880s. In 1890 it was estimated that there were 20,000 men on the North Sea. The steam drifter was not used in the herring fishery until 1897. The last sailing fishing trawler was built in 1925 in Grimsby. Trawler designs adapted as the way they were powered changed from sail to coal-fired steam by World War I to diesel and turbines by the end of World War II.
Recreational fishing
Recreational fishing took a great leap forward after the English Civil War, where a newly found interest in the activity left its mark on the many books and treatises that were written on the subject at the time. Leonard Mascall in 1589 wrote “A booke of Fishing with Hooke and Line,” along with many others he produced in his life on game and wildlife in England at the time. “The Compleat Angler” was written by Izaak Walton in 1653 — although Walton continued to add to it for a quarter of a century — and described the fishing in the Derbyshire Wye Wye. It was a celebration of the art and spirit of fishing in prose and verse. A second part to the book was added by Walton's friend Charles Cotton.
The industry also became commercialized — rods and tackle were sold at the haberdashers store. After the Great Fire of London in 1666, artisans moved to Redditch which became a center of production of fishing related products from the 1730s. Onesimus Ustonson established his shop in 1761, and his establishment remained as a market leader for the next century. He received a Royal Warrant from three successive monarchs starting with King George IV. He also invented the multiplying winch. The commercialization of the industry came at a time of expanded interest in fishing as a recreational hobby for members of the aristocracy.
The impact of the Industrial Revolution was first felt in the manufacture of fly lines. Instead of anglers twisting their lines — a laborious and time-consuming process — the new textile spinning machines allowed for a variety of tapered lines to be easily manufactured and marketed.
British fly-fishing continued to develop in the 19th century, with the emergence of fly fishing clubs, along with the appearance of several books on the subject of fly tying and fly fishing techniques.
By the mid to late 19th century, expanding leisure opportunities for the middle and lower classes began to have its effect on fly fishing, which steadily grew in mass appeal. The expansion of the railway network in Britain allowed the less affluent for the first time to take weekend trips to the seaside or rivers for fishing. Richer hobbyists ventured further abroad. The large rivers of Norway replete with large stocks of salmon began to attract fishers from England in large numbers in the middle of the century — “Jones's guide to Norway, and salmon-fisher's pocket companion,” published in 1848, was written by Frederic Tolfrey and was a popular guide to the country.
Modern reel design had begun in England during the latter part of the 18th century, and the predominant model in use was known as the Nottingham reel. The reel was a wide drum that spooled out freely and was ideal for allowing the bait to drift along way out with the current. Geared multiplying reels never successfully caught on in Britain, but had more success in the United States, where similar models were modified by George Snyder of Kentucky into his bait-casting reel, the first American-made design in 1810.
The material used for the rod itself changed from the heavy woods native to England to lighter and more elastic varieties imported from abroad, especially from South America and the West Indies. Bamboo rods became the generally favored option from the mid-19th century, and several strips of the material were cut from the cane, milled into shape, and then glued together to form the light, strong, hexagonal rods with a solid core that were superior to anything that preceded them. George Cotton and his predecessors fished their flies with long rods, and light lines allowing the wind to do most of the work of getting the fly to the fish.
Tackle design began to improve from the 1880s. The introduction of new woods to the manufacture of fly rods made it possible to cast flies into the wind on silk lines, instead of horse hair. These lines allowed for a much greater casting distance. However, these early fly lines proved troublesome as they had to be coated with various dressings to make them float and needed to be taken off the reel and dried every four hours or so to prevent them from becoming waterlogged. Another negative consequence was that it became easy for the much longer line to get into a tangle — this was called a “tangle” in Britain, and a “backlash” in the U.S. This problem spurred the invention of the regulator to evenly spool the line out and prevent tangling.
The American Charles F. Orvis designed and distributed a novel reel and fly design in 1874, described by reel historian Jim Brown as the "benchmark of American reel design," and the first fully modern fly reel.
Albert Illingworth, 1st Baron Illingworth, a textiles magnate, patented the modern form of fixed-spool spinning reel in 1905. When casting Illingworth's reel design, the line was drawn off the leading edge of the spool but was restrained and rewound by a line pickup, a device which orbits around the stationary spool. Because the line did not have to pull against a rotating spool, much lighter lures could be cast than with conventional reels.
The development of inexpensive fiberglass rods, synthetic fly lines and monofilament leaders in the early 1950s revived the popularity of fly fishing.
Techniques
Fishing techniques include hand gathering, spearfishing, netting, angling and trapping. Recreational, commercial and artisanal fishers use different techniques, and also, sometimes, the same techniques. Recreational fishers fish for pleasure, sport or to provide food for themselves, while commercial fishers fish for profit. Artisanal fishers use traditional, low-tech methods for survival in third-world countries and as a cultural heritage in other countries. Usually, recreational fishers use angling methods and commercial fishers use netting methods.
Why a fish bites a baited hook or lure involves several factors related to the sensory physiology, behavior, feeding ecology, and biology of the fish as well as the environment and characteristics of the bait/hook/lure. There is an intricate link between various fishing techniques and knowledge about the fish and their behavior including migration, foraging and habitat. The effective use of fishing techniques often depends on this additional knowledge. Some fishermen follow fishing folklore which claims that fish feeding patterns are influenced by the position of the sun and the moon.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, in 2004 there were four million commercial fishing vessels. About 1.3 million of these were decked vessels with enclosed areas. Nearly all of these decked vessels were mechanized, and 40,000 of them were over 100 tons. At the other extreme, two-thirds or 1.8 million of the undecked boats were traditional craft of various types, powered only by sail and oars. These boats were used by artisan fishers.
Commercial fishing
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the total world capture fisheries production in 2000 was 86 million tons. The top producing countries were, in order, the People's Republic of China — excluding Hong Kong and Taiwan, Peru, Japan, the United States, Chile, Indonesia, Russia, India, Thailand, Norway and Iceland. Those countries accounted for more than half of the world's production; China alone accounted for a third of the world's production. Of that production, over 90% was marine and less than 10% was inland.
A small number of species support the majority of the world's fisheries. Some of these species are herring, cod, anchovy, tuna, flounder, mullet, squid, shrimp, salmon, crab, lobster, oyster and scallops. All except these last four provided a worldwide catch of well over a million tons in 1999, with herring and sardines together providing a catch of over 22 million metric tons in 1999. Many other species as well are fished in smaller numbers.
Cultural impact
Fishing has had an effect on major religions, including Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and the various new age religions. Jesus was said to participate in fishing excursions, and a number of the miracles and many parables and stories reported in the Bible involve fish or fishing. Since the Apostle Peter was a fisherman, the Catholic Church has adopted the use of the Ring of the Fisherman into the Pope's traditional vestments.
A "fishing expedition” is a situation where an interviewer implies they know more than they do to trick their target into divulging more information than they wish to reveal. Other examples of fishing terms that carry a negative connotation are: "fishing for compliments," "to be fooled hook, line and sinker," “to be fooled beyond merely taking the bait" and the internet scam of phishing, in which a third party will duplicate a website where the user would put sensitive information, such as bank codes.
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