Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment, but may also be caught from stocked bodies of water such as ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. Fishing techniques include hand-gathering, spearing, netting, angling, shooting and trapping, as well as more destructive and often illegal techniques such as electrocution, blasting and poisoning.
Bass fishing is the recreational fishing activity, typically via rod angling, for various North American game fishes known collectively as black bass. There are numerous black bass species targeted in North America, including largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, spotted bass or Kentucky bass, and Guadalupe bass. All black bass species are members of the sunfish family Centrarchidae.
Fly fishing is an angling method that uses a light-weight lure—called an artificial fly—to catch fish. The fly is cast using a fly rod, reel, and specialized weighted line. The light weight requires casting techniques significantly different from other forms of casting. The flies may resemble natural invertebrates, bait-fish, or other food organisms.
Angling is a fishing technique that uses a fish hook or "angle" attached to a fishing line to tether individual fish in the mouth. The fishing line is usually manipulated via a fishing rod, although rodless techniques such as handlining and longlining also exist. Modern angling rods are usually fitted with a reel that functions as a cranking device for storing, retrieving and releasing out the line, although Tenkara fishing and cane pole fishing are two rod-angling methods that do not use any reel. The hook itself can be additionally weighted with a dense tackle called a sinker, and is typically dressed with an appetizing bait to attract the fish and enticing it into swallowing the hook, but sometimes an inedible fake bait with multiple attached hooks is used instead of a single hook with edible bait. A bite indicator, such as a float or a quiver tip, is often used to relay underwater status of the hook to the surface.
Recreational fishing, also called sport fishing or game fishing, is fishing for leisure, exercise or competition. It can be contrasted with commercial fishing, which is professional fishing for profit; or subsistence fishing, which is fishing for survival and livelihood.
A fishing lure is a broad type of artificial angling baits that are replicas designed to mimic real prey animals and attract the attention of predatory fish, using appearances, flashy colors, bright reflections, movements, vibrations and/or loud noises to appeal to the fish's predation instinct and entice it into striking.
The International Game Fish Association (IGFA) is the leading authority on angling pursuits and the keeper of the most current World Record fishing catches by fish categories. Fishermen who are sport fishers are careful to follow their stringent rules for fair play and line requirements in order to receive the honor of being listed in their annual "World Record Game Fishes" publication. The publication also gives fishing tips, and has an extensive fish identification guide. The IGFA is also an ardent proponent of aquatic habitat conservation, and cooperates with biologists all over the world.
John Dennis Wilson was a British angler who had been involved with angling television production for over twenty years featuring on Channel 4 Television and more recently on the digital TV channel, Discovery Real Time. Wilson was voted 'The Greatest Angler of all Time' in a 2004 poll by readers of the Angling Times Newspaper.
In Britain and Ireland, coarse fishing refers to angling for rough fish, which are fish species traditionally considered undesirable as a food or game fish. Freshwater game fish are all salmonids — most particularly salmon, trout and char — so generally coarse fish are freshwater fish that are not salmonids. There is disagreement over whether grayling should be classified as a game fish or a coarse fish.
A fishing float or bobber is a lightweight buoy used in angling, usually attached to a fishing line. A float can serve several purposes:
An artificial fly or fly lure is a type of fishing lure, usually used in the sport of fly fishing. In general, artificial flies are an imitation of aquatic insects that are natural food of the target fish species the fly fishers try to catch. Artificial flies are constructed by fly tying, in which furs, feathers, thread or any of very many other materials are tied onto a fish hook.
Matthew Hayes is a British angler who is featured in televised angling shows on Discovery Real Time.
Spin fishing is an angling technique where a spinnerbait, a type of hybrid fishing lure with at least one freely rotating blade, is used to entice the fish to bite. When the line is reeled back, the spinnerbait blades will spin passively with oncoming the water flow, in turn stirring up significant amount of turbulence and noise, which transmit through the water and provoke predatory fish to strike the lure out of their foraging as well as territorial instincts. Spin fishing is used in both freshwater and marine environments.
Fishing techniques are methods for catching fish. The term may also be applied to methods for catching other aquatic animals such as molluscs and edible marine invertebrates.
This general annotated bibliography page provides an overview of notable and not so notable works in the English language regarding the sport of fly fishing, listed by year of first publication. Although not all the listed books are devoted exclusively to fly fishing, all these titles contain significant fly fishing content. The focus of the present page is on classic general texts on fly fishing and its history, together with notable public or university library collections dedicated to fly fishing.
A Book on Angling – Being a complete treatise on the art of angling in every branch is a work of angling literature with significant fly fishing content written by Francis Francis, angling editor to The Field and published in London in 1867 by Longmans, Green and Company.
This annotated bibliography is intended to list both notable and not so notable works of English language, non-fiction and fiction related to the sport of fly fishing listed by year published. Although 100% of any book listed is not necessarily devoted to fly fishing, all these titles have significant fly fishing content. Included in this bibliography is a list of species related fly fishing literature.
Dry-Fly Fishing in Theory and Practice (1889) is British author and angler Frederic M. Halford's second and most influential book on dry fly fishing. It followed Floating Flies and How to Dress Them (1886) and this pair of books initiated some 40 years of a rigid, and sometimes dogmatic school, the Halfordian school, of dry fly fishing, especially on English chalk streams. The work also played a significant role in the development of dry-fly fishing in America.
This is an impartial and comprehensive record list of 294 British record freshwater fish, past and present, involving 59 different species/sub-species of fish caught using the traditional angling method of rod and line. Records to include the angler, species, weight, date, venue, also referenced with a recognizable publication. The list is intended to include all categories of fish caught by anglers, that enter freshwater including and some migratory sea fish. The time since last record fish was caught is 196 days.
The American Angler's BookEmbracing the Natural History of Sporting Fish and the Art of Taking Them with Instructions in Fly-Fishing, Fly-Making, and Rod-Making and Directions for Fish-Breeding, to which is appended Dies Piscatoriae Describing Noted Fishing-Places, and The Pleasure of Solitary Fly-Fishing is an early American angling book by Thaddeus Norris (1811-1877) first published in 1864. Norris was known as Uncle Thad and commonly referred to in American angling history as "The American Walton".
