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Monday 2 February 2015

Fishing

Humans began catching and eating fish for food by grabbing them from the shallow water of lakes, ponds or streams and along the seashore, Fishing became easier around 30,000 BC when man developed the fish hook, a piece of wood, bone, or stone covered with some kind of bait.

By 4000 BC fish was a very important source of food. Developments in sailing were facilitating fishing in deeper water as well as in lakes. The Egyptians were catching fish in the Nile with nets or metal hooks or a short rod with line. People either ate the fish or sold their catches to buy other foods.

By 350BC the Chinese were catching fish with a silk line; a hook made from a needle, and a bamboo rod, with cooked rice as bait.

The ancient Romans lured swordfish within range of their spears by using boats shaped like their prey.

The first English book about fishing in England was Wynkyn de Worde of the Treatyse of Fysshynge With an Angle. Printed in 1496, it was based on earlier continental treatises dating to the 14th century.

The artificial flies described in the Treatyse are surprisingly modern (six of the dozen mentioned are still in use). The rods are 18-22 feet long with a line of plaited horsehair tied to one end.

Progress was made in the mid-17th century with the publication of Izaak Walton's treatise The Compleat Angler, or the Contemplative Man's Recreation (1653), which combined descriptions of new tackle and methods of fishing, with folklore, gastronomic advice, songs, verse, and pastoral interludes. Walton said: "God did never make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than angling."

During early white settlement in the United States, the pioneer's attention was soon drawn to a peculiar type of fish. By protracting its toothless mouth with its fleshy lips it seemed to suck up its food from the beds of the lakes. This made them call the fish a sucker.

The plentiful sucker fish were easily caught. True sportsmen regarded them as too easy a prey. The least experienced angler could catch a "sucker!" It did not take long for its name to be transferred to humans who also bite when a conman throws them a bait.

The 18th century writer Dr Samuel Johnson was not an enthusiastic fisherman, He once referred to fly fishing as "a stick & a string with a worm at one end & a fool at the other."  

A Briton based in Florida, Richard Hart, landed a 415-pound, 8-ounce arapaima measuring more than 13 feet in length. He caught it using fly tackle in the Rewa River in the mountain jungle of Guyana.
International Game Fish Association officials approved the February 2015 catch as the heaviest freshwater world record ever taken on fly tackle.

The phrase 'to swallow something "hook, line and sinker" ' is an idiomatic expression meaning to accept uncritically an idea or set of beliefs. The term, which has been in use since the mid-19th century is a fishing metaphor referencing the three essential pieces of fishing tackle in angling. The hungry and gullible fish swallows not only the baited hook, but the sinker (lead weight) and some of the line as well.

US patent 22553125 was issued in 1941 for a firing mechanism in a fishing hook that shoots the fish when it takes the bait.

The only two species on Earth that make fishing hooks are humans and New Caledonian crows, which use them to extract bugs from tree trunks.

It is estimated that between one and three trillion fish are caught every year in the wild.


Sometimes fishermen are unable to lift their nets because they contain more bacteria than shrimp.

Bottom trawlers destroy 4 to 16 pounds of marine life for every fish they catch. This waste, known as bycatch, can include other species of fish (including sharks and dolphins), anything that has the misfortune to be caught in the path of a rumbling trawl.

In a list of US sports where you're likely to pick up injuries, fishing comes sixth behind basketball, cycling, tennis, hiking and bowling.

The most common fishing injuries are sticking a hook through your hand or straining a muscle getting out of a boat.

In Florida it is illegal to fish while driving across a bridge.

Here is a list of songs about fishing.

Sources Encyclopedia Britannica, Daily Express, Oldmaster85.com Scientific American, Europress Enyclopedia

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