162 Fun Facts About Fishing

A boat's electronic 'fish finder' locates fish using which technology?

Sonar: the unit fires pulses of sound into the water and reads the echoes that bounce back, so fish and the bottom show up on its screen.

Which fishing line material is prized for being almost invisible underwater?

Fluorocarbon bends light almost as water does, so fish struggle to see it, which is why anglers tie a length of it between the main line and the hook; it is also denser than nylon and sinks.

The world's oldest known fish hooks, found in Sakitari Cave, Okinawa, are made from what?

Sea snail shells: the Sakitari Cave hooks are more than 22,000 years old, older than shell hooks from East Timor and Papua New Guinea, a sign that Ice Age islanders were already skilled fishers.

Which classic lure is nothing more than a curved blade of polished metal with a hook?

Spoon: its dished shape makes the bright metal wobble as it is drawn through the water, throwing off flashes like the scales of a swimming baitfish.

The earliest fishing reels are documented in paintings from which country and era?

China, Song dynasty: a painting by Ma Yuan from about 1195 shows a fisherman with a reel on his rod, and Chinese texts mention line wheels as early as the 3rd century, long before reels appear in Europe.

Which reel brand grew out of a Tulsa company that made time bombs for oil wells?

Zebco: the Zero Hour Bomb Company made electric time bombs for oil wells until an inventor, R. D. Hull, walked in with his design for a backlash-free reel; the reels sold so well that the firm took their brand name and left the oil field.

George Snyder, who made the first American bait-casting reel in 1810, worked in what trade?

Watchmaker and silversmith: George Snyder of Paris, Kentucky built the first American multiplying bait-casting reel, and his 'Kentucky reel' was copied by Meek, Milam and others.

Before nylon, braided fly lines were traditionally made of which material?

Silk: braided silk fly lines replaced horsehair in the 19th century and let anglers cast much farther, even into the wind.

The favoured fishing rods of the late 19th century were built by gluing strips of which material into hexagonal blanks?

Bamboo: gluing split strips together kept the cane's strength and spring while cutting the rod's thickness and weight, and split-bamboo fly rods are still made and fished today.

The Mitchell 300, a classic fixed-spool spinning reel launched in the late 1940s, was made where?

France: the Mitchell 300 came from a factory at Cluses in the French Alps, which turned out reels by the million until low-cost competition from Asia pushed production abroad.

Which tackle item suspends the bait at a set depth and dips when a fish bites?

A float or bobber does a second job as well: its buoyancy lets the current carry a baited hook into water a cast could not reach.

Why did lead become the material of choice for fishing sinkers?

Low cost, easy casting and density: lead is cheap, melts at about 327 °C so it is easily cast into shapes, and sinks a bait fast; many places now restrict lead tackle because it poisons wildlife.

Which commercial fishing method sets hundreds or thousands of baited hooks on short branches called snoods or gangions?

Longlining runs a main line that can stretch for miles, and its baited hooks also catch sea turtles, which can drown when they are hooked or tangled below the surface.

What is 'noodling'?

Catching catfish with bare hands or feet: the noodler reaches into an underwater hole where a catfish guards its nest and lets it latch onto a hand; some states ban it as too dangerous.

Which tool does an ice angler use to cut a round hole in the ice?

An auger, cranked by hand or driven by a motor, bores the hole; an ice saw or chisel can also do the job, and a slotted skimmer then scoops out slush and new ice.

What is the reserve line wound onto a fly reel beneath the fly line called?

Backing is thin braided line wound on beneath the fly line; it fills out the spool and gives a hard-running fish more line to take once the whole fly line has left the reel.

Offshore sport-fishing boats hold trolling lines clear of the wake with which long poles?

Outriggers are long poles angled out from each side of the boat; lines clipped to them run wide of the wake so several baits troll without tangling, while downriggers hold baits at depth.

Which Roman writer is often credited with the first record of an artificial fly, around 200 AD?

Claudius Aelianus, in De Natura Animalium (c. 200 AD), described Macedonian anglers on the Astraeus River catching spotted fish with a hook dressed in red wool and two cock's feathers.

The 1496 treatise on fishing credited to Dame Juliana Berners was added to which book?

The Boke of Saint Albans: Wynkyn de Worde's 1496 second edition added the fishing treatise to this guide to hawking, hunting and heraldry, and many of the methods it describes are still in use.

Who wrote The Compleat Angler, first published in 1653?

Izaak Walton kept adding to The Compleat Angler for a quarter of a century after its 1653 debut.

Who added the extra chapters to the expanded 1676 edition of The Compleat Angler?

Charles Cotton, the author's friend, wrote the twelve added chapters on fly fishing in clear streams, and had the two men's initials twined into a cipher over the door of his riverside fishing house.

Fly anglers call the newly winged, not yet mature stage of which insect a 'dun'?

Mayfly: it is the only insect that moults again after growing working wings, and that brief first winged stage, the dun, is one that many classic trout flies are tied to copy.

A circle hook, favoured for catch and release, is shaped to catch a fish where?

In the corner of the mouth: a swallowed circle hook is built to slide back out of the throat and turn into the lip rather than the gut, so far more released fish survive.

Which fly angler promoted catch and release from 1936, saying game fish are too valuable to catch only once?

Lee Wulff, the fly-fishing author and film-maker, argued from the 1930s that 'a game fish is too valuable to be caught only once', a line printed in his 1939 Handbook of Freshwater Fishing.

Trout Unlimited was founded in 1959 by a handful of anglers on a riverbank in which US state?

Michigan: the founders were tired of seeing the state fill its streams with hatchery trout, and their new group soon persuaded it to cut back on stocking and manage its rivers for wild fish.

In the film Jaws, what is the name of the shark hunter Quint's boat?

Orca: Quint takes the police chief and a visiting scientist to sea on her to hunt the shark, which at last hurls itself onto the stern and sinks the boat under them.

Who is credited with founding big-game fishing in 1898?

Charles Frederick Holder landed a 183-pound tuna on rod and reel off Santa Catalina Island in 1898, then founded the Tuna Club there, which allowed only rod and reel so that the fish had a sporting chance.

The International Game Fish Association was launched in 1939 at which institution?

American Museum of Natural History: the IGFA was launched in a cramped upstairs office there, because its backer Michael Lerner fished on museum expeditions and its fish expert William K. Gregory became first president.

Which magazine handed 68 years of freshwater records to the IGFA in 1978?

Field & Stream had kept the records since 1910 and was glad to hand them on; until then the IGFA had been the keeper of saltwater records only.

Which leaping saltwater game fish do anglers call the 'silver king'?

Tarpon: the nickname comes from the flash of its big silver scales as it leaps clear of the water, and Florida prizes the fish so highly that it is catch-and-release only there.

Who founded the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society (B.A.S.S.)?

Ray Scott got 106 anglers to pay $100 each to fish his first tournament on Beaver Lake, Arkansas, in 1967, then built the society, its magazine and a professional tour around them.

Where was the first Bassmaster Classic held in 1971?

Lake Mead, Nevada: the venue was a 'mystery lake' that the anglers learned of only once their plane was in the air, and Bobby Murray took the $10,000 first prize.

As of 2025, which two anglers share the record of four Bassmaster Classic wins?

Rick Clunn and Kevin VanDam: Clunn gave up a steady computer job at Exxon in the 1970s to fish for a living, and VanDam matched his four titles in 2011.

In bass fishing, what is a 'Texas rig'?

A weedless worm with a bullet weight: the hook point is buried in the soft plastic so the rig slides through weeds and brush without snagging, behind a sinker that is free to slide on the line.

In anglers' slang, what is a 'lunker'?

An unusually big fish, most often a bass: Texas even runs a ShareLunker programme that asks anglers to lend any largemouth of 13 pounds or more for breeding.

Bill Dance's fishing show began in 1968 on a TV station in which city?

Memphis: Bill Dance Outdoors began as a local show on the city's ABC station, WHBQ, after a lure maker that sponsored Dance suggested television as a way to promote its baits.

Bill Dance's trademark baseball cap represents which college team?

Tennessee Volunteers: the orange-and-white cap has been Dance's trademark through more than 2,000 airings of Bill Dance Outdoors, so even people who have never cast a line know his face.

Johnny Morris started Bass Pro Shops by selling tackle from where?

His father's liquor store: tired of local bait shops that never stocked the lures he wanted, Morris set up a small tackle display at the back of his dad's Brown Derby store in Springfield, Missouri.

In which state was the outdoor retailer Cabela's founded in 1961?

Nebraska: Dick Cabela bought $45 worth of fishing flies at a Chicago furniture show and advertised them from Chappell, Nebraska; he and his wife mailed out the orders, and the firm later moved to Sidney.

Orvis opened its first tackle shop in 1856 in which town?

Manchester, Vermont: Orvis's daughter Mary Orvis Marbury ran the firm's fly department and in 1892 turned anglers' letters into Favorite Flies and Their Histories, the standard guide to fly patterns in its day.

Lauri Rapala carved the first floating minnow lure in 1936 from what?

Cork: Rapala wrapped his first lure in foil from chocolate bars and, unable to afford lacquer, sealed it with melted photographic negatives; the balsa bodies came later.

Rapala, the lure maker, is based in which country?

Finland: Lauri Rapala made his first lures beside Lake Päijänne in the 1930s, and the Rapala VMC group is headquartered in Helsinki.

What did Abu Garcia's parent company AB Urfabriken originally manufacture?

Watches, telephone timers and taximeters: AB Urfabriken, 'the watch factory', turned to fishing reels during the Second World War, when demand for its meters fell and the founder's son, a keen angler, changed course.

Tackle giant Shimano earns most of its money from what?

Bicycle parts: Shimano began in 1921 making bicycle freewheels and sold nothing to anglers until 1970; cycling components still bring in far more of its sales than fishing tackle does.

George Perry's 1932 world-record largemouth bass was tied in 2009 by a fish from Lake Biwa in which country?

Japan: Manabu Kurita's Lake Biwa bass came in a whisker heavier than Perry's 22 lb 4 oz Georgia fish, but a new record must win by at least two ounces, so the two anglers share the title.

Which invasive fish is notorious for leaping from the Mississippi and its tributaries when boats pass?

Silver carp, imported to clean algae from fish farms, escaped into the river system; startled by engines, the heavy fish jump high enough to injure boaters and water-skiers.

Where was David Hayes's all-tackle world record smallmouth bass caught in 1955?

Dale Hollow Reservoir gave up Hayes's 11 lb 15 oz smallmouth in 1955; the record was struck out in 1996 over a sworn claim that weights had been stuffed into the fish, then restored once the claim was shown to be false.

The name 'muskellunge' comes from an Ojibwe word often translated as what?

Ugly pike is the usual reading of Ojibwe maashkinoozhe, though dictionaries also allow 'great pike' or 'pike-like'; French speakers then reshaped the word into masque allongé, 'long mask'.

The IGFA record muskellunge was caught by Cal Johnson in 1949 in which state?

Wisconsin: Johnson's 67 lb 8 oz muskellunge came from Lac Courte Oreilles near Hayward, Wisconsin, in July 1949 and was recognised as the IGFA all-tackle record.

Mabry Harper's 25-pound world-record walleye of 1960 came from Old Hickory Lake in which state?

Tennessee: Old Hickory Lake, a Cumberland River reservoir, takes its name from the nickname of Andrew Jackson, whose home, The Hermitage, stands nearby; Harper's walleye from it is still the all-tackle record.

Which state made the walleye its official state fish in 1965?

Minnesota made the walleye its state fish in 1965; it is the state's most sought-after catch, served as a sandwich in pubs and deep-fried on a stick at the State Fair.

The walleye, a favourite North American game fish, takes its name from what?

Its pearly, light-reflecting eyes: a mirror-like layer behind the retina lets the walleye see and feed at night and in murky water, which is why anglers so often fish for it after dark.

The IGFA record bluegill of 4 lb 12 oz was caught in 1950 in which state?

Alabama: the record bluegill came from Ketona Lake, a flooded limestone quarry near Birmingham whose steep sides left little room to spawn and whose bass ate most of the young, so the few survivors grew huge.

The bluegill is the state fish of which state?

Illinois: the state's schoolchildren chose the bluegill in a 1986 vote, picking a small panfish that is common in waters right across Illinois.

The heaviest authenticated wels catfish, landed in 2010, came from which river?

Po: the fish was landed in the Po river in northern Italy in 2010 by a Hungarian angler; the Po delta is famed for giant wels catfish.

What was the name of Ernest Hemingway's beloved fishing boat, bought in 1934?

Pilar: Hemingway bought the 38-foot cruiser from a Brooklyn yard in 1934, fished her off Key West and Cuba, and in wartime even took her out hunting German U-boats.

Alfred Glassell's 1953 IGFA record of 1,560 lb, set off Peru, was for which marlin?

Black marlin: Glassell fought the 1,560 lb fish off Cabo Blanco, Peru, on a linen line, then gave the mount to the Smithsonian. As of 2023 no heavier marlin had entered the IGFA all-tackle records.

The IGFA all-tackle swordfish record, 536 kg, was taken in 1953 off which country?

Chile: the 1,182 lb (536 kg) fish was taken off the Chilean coast in 1953; Pacific swordfish grow far larger than Atlantic or Mediterranean ones, and nearly every swordfish over 300 lb is a female.

Which fish, long billed as the ocean's fastest at over 100 km/h, did 2016 muscle tests show stays under 55 km/h?

Sailfish: tests on its swimming muscle gave a top speed of about 30 km/h, far short of the 125 km/h once claimed, and anything beyond roughly 55 km/h would form bubbles that damage its fins.

The record striped bass, 81 lb 14 oz, was hooked in 2011 in which body of water?

Long Island Sound: Greg Myerson hooked it on a live eel off Westbrook, Connecticut, kept fishing, and weighed it the next morning; it broke a record that had stood since 1982.

The striped bass, known locally as rockfish, has been the official state fish of which state since 1965?

Maryland named the rockfish its state fish in 1965; striped bass spawn each spring in the Chesapeake Bay's tidal rivers, and part of the Atlantic stock stays in the bay all year.

The record red drum, just over 94 pounds, was caught in 1984 on which island?

Hatteras: the fish, just over 94 lb, was hauled from the North Carolina surf in 1984, when an angler could still keep such a trophy; red drum that size are now released to protect the spawning stock.

Which are the world's largest flatfish?

Pacific and Atlantic halibut are the largest flatfish, growing well over 2 metres long; each hatches with an eye on either side of its head, and one eye migrates across as the young fish settles onto its side.

The 'hali' in halibut is thought to come from a Middle English word meaning what?

Holy: halibut is thought to join Middle English haly, 'holy', and butte, 'flatfish', supposedly because the big fish was eaten on holy days.

The largest accepted beluga sturgeon record, 1,571 kg, was taken in 1827 from where?

The Volga estuary gave up the giant female in 1827; belugas can live for more than a century and females first spawn at around 16 to 22, so heavy fishing soon removed fish of her size.

Traditionally, true caviar comes only from wild sturgeon in which two seas?

Caspian and Black: the classic beluga, ossetra and sevruga caviars came from wild sturgeon of the Caspian and Black Seas, fished by Russia and Iran, before wild harvests collapsed and farming took over.

Which fish took the Guinness World Record for largest freshwater fish in 2005?

Mekong giant catfish: the 293 kg female netted in northern Thailand in 2005 was stripped of her eggs for a breeding programme but died before she could be released; a 300 kg stingray from Cambodia took the title in 2022.

Alf Dean's 1959 catch, long the heaviest fish in the IGFA record book, was which species?

Great white shark: Dean's 2,664 lb fish from South Australia still led the IGFA all-tackle list in 2026; a 3,427 lb great white caught off Montauk, New York, in 1986 never replaced it.

The IGFA world record brook trout of 14 lb 8 oz was caught over a century ago on which Canadian river?

Nipigon: Dr Cook's trout came from Ontario's Nipigon River, and the record book dates it to 1916, though the forest reserve's visitor register shows he fished there in July 1915 and not the year after.

The IGFA rod-and-reel record lake trout of 72 pounds was caught in 1995 in which lake?

Great Bear: the 72-pound trout came from Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories in 1995; a 102-pound fish from Lake Athabasca was heavier, but it was netted in 1961, so it never counted as a rod-and-reel record.

The sport-caught world record Chinook salmon of 97 lb was taken in 1985 from which river?

Kenai: Les Anderson, a 68-year-old Soldotna car dealer, hooked the 97 lb 4 oz king at dawn in May 1985 and fought it for 45 minutes; it was not weighed until that afternoon, so it may have topped 100 pounds fresh.

The steelhead is the official state fish of which state?

Washington chose the steelhead as its official state fish; it is a rainbow trout that migrates to sea and returns far larger, and unlike Pacific salmon it can survive spawning and make the run again.

Which Alaskan bay hosts the world's largest sockeye salmon harvest?

Bristol Bay supports the world's largest sockeye salmon fishery; to protect it, the US Environmental Protection Agency in 2023 blocked the Pebble Mine proposed in the bay's watershed.

The zander, a predatory European sport fish, is also known by which name that joins two other fish?

Pike-perch: the zander is no hybrid but a member of the perch family whose long, muscular body recalls a pike, hence the name.

Where do European eels spawn?

The Sargasso Sea: Danish researcher Johannes Schmidt identified it as the eels' likely spawning ground in the early 1900s; the larvae spread across the Atlantic and reach Europe's rivers as glass eels.

Salmon returning from the ocean find the very stream where they hatched mainly by using which sense?

Smell: young salmon memorise the scent of their home stream as they leave for the sea; returning adults are thought to steer by Earth's magnetic field to the right coast, then follow their noses upstream.

The Latin root of 'salmon' may come from salire, meaning what?

To leap: Latin salmo is probably 'the leaper', from salire, though some scholars call that folk etymology; English wrote samoun until the silent 'l' was restored in the 16th century to match the Latin.

A catfish's whisker-like barbels are packed with what, helping it find food in murky water?

Taste buds: a catfish in effect tastes whatever its barbels touch, which matters more than eyesight in muddy water, so its eyes are generally small.

The first living coelacanth was found in 1938 off the coast of which country?

South Africa: museum curator Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer spotted the strange fish in a trawler's catch at East London in December 1938; coelacanths had been thought extinct for some 66 million years.

Snakeheads can migrate short distances over land because they can do what?

Breathe air: snakeheads have a suprabranchial chamber that lets them gulp atmospheric air, so they can survive out of water for days and wriggle short distances across wet ground.

What is the largest known living fish species?

Whale shark: it can grow to more than 18 metres, yet it lives on some of the sea's smallest prey, sucking in mouthfuls of water and straining out plankton and small fish.

Which disc-shaped giant of the open sea can carry some 300 million eggs at a time, more than any other known vertebrate?

Ocean sunfish: the eggs are shed into open water, and the fry that survive look like tiny spiky pufferfish and can grow to 60 million times their starting weight.

The Cod Wars were fought over fishing rights between the UK and which country?

Iceland: the three Cod Wars between 1958 and 1976 followed Iceland's extensions of its fishing limits to 12, 50 and then 200 nautical miles, and each ended with Britain accepting the new line.

In 1992 Canada closed the 500-year-old Grand Banks fishery after which fish stock collapsed?

Atlantic cod: with the northern stock down to about 1% of its peak, the July 1992 moratorium put some 30,000 people in Newfoundland and Labrador out of work; commercial fishing resumed only in 2024.

Which small Pacific fish, mostly ground into fishmeal, has been called the most heavily exploited fish in world history?

Anchoveta: catches off South America's Pacific coast peaked at about 13 million tonnes in 1971, then overfishing and the 1972 El Niño, which pushed warm water over the cold Humboldt Current, sent the stock crashing.

Which fish is used in McDonald's Filet-O-Fish in the US?

Alaska pollock: the sandwich was devised in 1962 by Cincinnati franchisee Lou Groen, whose Catholic customers gave up meat on Fridays, and it outsold Ray Kroc's meatless rival, the pineapple Hula Burger.

Herring were nicknamed what in the United Kingdom?

Silver darlings: the shimmering shoals once gave millions of Britons their main protein, but overfishing collapsed the North Sea fishery by the 1970s and herring fishing was banned outright for four years.

In Roman times anchovies were the base for which fermented sauce?

Garum: the Romans fermented anchovies and other small fish with salt in the sun to make garum, produced in industrial quantities at factories in Spain and North Africa.

The Marine Stewardship Council, whose blue label marks sustainable seafood, was founded by which two partners?

WWF and Unilever: conservationists and the consumer-goods giant first met in 1995, alarmed by overfishing, and signed a joint statement of intent the next year that led to the council.

A 'slot limit' set by a fisheries agency restricts what?

The size of fish kept: a slot limit sets a band of lengths, and depending on the water either only fish inside it may be kept, or those are the ones put back so the best breeders survive.

In fishing, what is 'chumming'?

Scattering bait to draw fish to the boat: the chum, usually chunks of fish with bone and blood, lays a scent trail for predators; some places ban it for fear sharks learn to link people with food.

An 'Arbroath smokie', the hot-smoked speciality of the Scottish town, is which fish?

Haddock: an Arbroath smokie is a whole haddock, headed and gutted, salted and hot-smoked in pairs over hardwood; the name gained EU protected status in 2004.

On Japan's Nagara River, fishermen have for some 1,300 years used which trained birds to catch river fish?

Cormorants: a loose snare at the base of each bird's throat lets it swallow small fish but not large ones, which the fisherman has it cough up in the boat; a Chinese history recorded the practice in 636.

The osprey was historically known by which nickname?

Fish hawk: the osprey lives almost entirely on fish, hovering over the water and then plunging feet-first to seize its catch, with a reversible outer toe and spiny pads to hold the slippery prey.

In The Old Man and the Sea, what does the fisherman Santiago struggle to catch?

A giant marlin: Santiago, 84 days without a catch, hooks and finally kills the great fish, only for sharks to strip it to a skeleton as he tows it home.

The Old Man and the Sea was the only work named when Hemingway won which honour in 1954?

Nobel Prize in Literature: still recovering from two plane crashes in Africa that year, Hemingway did not travel to Stockholm, and the US ambassador to Sweden read his speech at the banquet.

Which Oscar did the fly-fishing film A River Runs Through It win?

Best Cinematography: Philippe Rousselot won for the film's river scenes, shot not on the story's own river but on the Gallatin, upper Yellowstone and Boulder in south-central Montana.

A River Runs Through It is set in and around which Montana city?

Missoula: Norman Maclean's 1976 novella follows the Maclean brothers, sons of a Presbyterian minister, in Missoula and on the nearby Blackfoot River; the film was shot largely near Livingston and Bozeman.

Deadliest Catch follows fishermen catching what in the Bering Sea?

Crab: the boats chase Alaskan king and snow crab through Bering Sea winters, and the title is no boast, since Alaskan crab fishing has ranked as the most dangerous job in the United States.

Which port is the base of operations for the Deadliest Catch fleet?

Dutch Harbor sits on Amaknak Island in the Aleutian city of Unalaska; Japanese carrier planes bombed the naval base there in June 1942, six months after Pearl Harbor.

Who hosts River Monsters, the television show that hunts large and dangerous freshwater fish?

Jeremy Wade: the former biology teacher has caught cerebral malaria in the Congo and survived a plane crash in the Amazon while chasing the river giants he films.

The 1975 film Jaws was based on a novel by whom?

Peter Benchley's 1974 novel Jaws was adapted by Steven Spielberg; malfunctioning mechanical sharks pushed him to merely suggest the shark's presence for much of the film.

What is the name of Captain Ahab's whaling ship in Moby-Dick?

Pequod: Ahab's Nantucket whaler, named for the Pequot people of Connecticut, is sunk by the white whale at the novel's end; the Rachel is the ship that rescues Ishmael.

Joseph Malin's London shop pioneered which dish around 1860?

Fish and chips: John Lees of Mossley, Lancashire, is the rival claimant from 1863. Fried fish came with Jewish refugees from Spain and Portugal, and ministers kept the dish off the ration in the Second World War.

Hanaya Yohei is credited with creating which sushi at his Edo shop around 1824?

Nigiri: Yohei pressed vinegared rice into shape by hand rather than in a wooden box, and the quick bites sold as fast food to Edo's townspeople.

A 40,000-year-old man whose bones reveal a diet rich in freshwater fish was found in a cave near which Chinese city?

Beijing: researchers found 34 pieces of the skeleton in nearby Tianyuan Cave in 2003 and tested their isotopes, which showed that freshwater fish made up a substantial part of the man's diet.

The modern sailing trawler was developed in the 19th century at which English fishing port?

Brixham: its fast, tall-rigged trawlers let crews range far beyond Devon's overfished home waters, and Brixham families who moved up the North Sea coast founded the trawler fleets of Hull and Grimsby.

What was the Fairtry, launched at Aberdeen in 1953?

The first purpose-made stern trawler: her owner Christian Salvesen, a whaling firm, had tried the idea in 1947 by fitting a surplus minesweeper with freezers and a factory ship's stern ramp for hauling the net.

Which English town became a tackle-making centre after artisans left London following the 1666 fire?

Redditch, in Worcestershire, became the centre of English hook and tackle making from the 1730s after London craftsmen moved there following the Great Fire of 1666; its needle industry supplied the same skills.

The name of the traditional Japanese fly-fishing method 'Tenkara' is most often translated as what?

'From heaven' is the usual English rendering of the name; unlike Western fly fishing, traditional tenkara uses no reel at all.

Which American angler pioneered fly fishing for brook trout in the Catskills in the late 1800s?

Theodore Gordon was sent a batch of English dry flies in 1890 and reworked them to match Catskill insects, creating patterns such as the Quill Gordon; he is remembered as the father of American dry-fly fishing.

Which British angler championed nymph fishing in Minor Tactics of the Chalk Stream (1910)?

G. E. M. Skues fished Hampshire's River Itchen, where his sunk nymphs broke with the dry-fly school of F. M. Halford, which fished chalk streams with a floating fly.

Which structure, a chain of stepped pools, lets migrating salmon climb past a dam on their way upstream?

A fish ladder turns one impassable wall into many small steps; a Canadian mill owner patented a version in 1837 to get fish past his own lumber-mill dam.

Which style of fishing rod slides each section inside the next, letting a 20-foot rod close to under two feet?

Telescopic rods of 20 or 30 feet can close to as little as a foot and a half, which is why surf anglers like them: a 12-foot beach rod is awkward to carry even in two pieces.

In fly fishing, what is a 'dry fly' designed to do that a wet fly or a nymph is not?

Stay on the surface: the fly copies a winged insect drifting downstream, and because the trout must rise to take it, the bite is far easier to see than with a sunk fly.

Anglers after barracuda or wahoo add a leader of stainless-steel or titanium wire to guard against which problem?

Bitten-off line is the risk, since few jaws can cut steel; a leader can also be made deliberately weaker than the main line, so that it fails first, like a fuse, and spares the costlier tackle.

What are the rings spaced along a fishing rod, which carry the line from reel to rod end, called?

Guides once had agate inserts to resist the wear of running line; modern ones are steel or titanium frames with ceramic or metal-alloy inserts.

What is the small backward-pointing spike beside a hook's point, which stops the hook sliding back out, called?

Barb spikes grip the tissue around the wound, which is why hooks made without them, sold as barbless, come out of a fish far more easily.

In England and Wales, which document must anyone aged 17 or over buy before going coarse fishing?

A rod licence is the legal minimum before any fee to the fishery itself; children under 13 need none, and those aged 13 to 16 get a junior licence free.

A fishing line's 'test' rating, quoted in pounds on the spool, tells an angler what about the line?

Breaking strength is measured by tensile testing, which probably gave the 'test' rating its name; a second theory makes the word a blend of 'tensile' and 'strength'.

Monofilament, the most common type of fishing line, is prized for its ability to do what under load?

Stretch in the line cushions the jolt when the hook is set and when a strong fish pulls, though over very long distances that same damping becomes a drawback.

The peacock bass, a sport fish released into Florida canals in 1984, is native to which great river basin?

The Amazon and the neighbouring Orinoco are its home waters, and it is really a large cichlid: Florida officials released it to prey on other non-native fish.

The Nile perch, a giant freshwater predator, was released in the 1950s into which vast East African lake?

Victoria paid dearly for its new sport and food fish: the release is blamed for the extinction or near-extinction of several hundred native species.

The brown trout first released into United States waters in the 1880s hatched from eggs shipped from which country?

Germany supplied the eggs: Baron Lucius von Behr sent them from Black Forest streams and lakes to Fred Mather, a New York fish breeder working for the US Fish Commissioner.

Ice anglers often leave a baited line on a device set over the hole; what does it raise to signal a bite?

A flag is lifted when a fish strikes, and because the spool of line sits on the device itself, nobody has to hold a rod over the hole.

Which invader reached the upper Great Lakes through the Welland Canal and devastated their native lake trout?

Sea lamprey clamp onto other fish and feed on them; the canal let the species bypass Niagara Falls, and by 1938 it had spread as far as Lake Superior.

What do biologists and anglers call the gravel nest that a female salmon digs with her tail?

A redd can hold up to 5,000 pea-sized eggs, and one female may dig as many as seven of them before her supply of eggs runs out.

Which popular panfish do Louisiana anglers know by the Cajun French name sac-à-lait?

Crappie go by sac-à-lait in Louisiana, a name that looks like French for 'milk bag' but really descends from a Choctaw word meaning trout.

What name is given to the landlocked form of sockeye salmon that spends its whole life in fresh water?

Kokanee never migrate to the sea, and the word means 'red fish' in the Sinixt Interior Salish language.

A fishing rod sold as 'fast action' is built so that, under load, it bends mainly in which section?

The tip alone flexes on a fast-action rod, while a slow-action rod curves through its whole length, which is why stiff fast rods are favoured for trolling.

What is the name of the joint, once made of nickel silver, where two sections of a fishing rod slot together?

Ferrule joints were fitted to rods made for travellers; since the 1980s flexible graphite versions have made multi-piece rods that pack into a suitcase a large share of the market.

The two-handed Spey cast, used for salmon on wide rivers, takes its name from a river in which country?

Scotland's River Spey is wide, with footing too awkward for wading, so its anglers perfected a cast with no back-cast: the fly never travels behind the caster.

What is the traditional wicker basket in which a trout angler carries the day's catch called?

Creel baskets were never only for fish: the same word covers the wicker carriers once used to haul blocks of peat.

On a baitcasting reel, what does an angler rest lightly on the revolving spool during a cast to prevent a backlash?

A thumb is the brake: without it the free spool overruns the line and tangles, though modern reels add centrifugal or magnetic braking to help.

Which adjustable reel mechanism lets a hard-running fish pull line off the spool under tension instead of snapping it?

The drag is a friction brake against the spool's outgoing rotation; big-game trolling reels come in two kinds named for how it is set, star and lever.

Which small tackle fitting joins two sections of line so that each can rotate freely instead of kinking?

A swivel is two rings on a pivot, so the turns put into a line by casting and retrieving unwind themselves; three-way versions add a third ring for a side branch.

Which author of best-selling Westerns became a pioneering big-game angler, landing record catches off Tahiti?

Zane Grey fished about 300 days a year, by his son's account, and in Tahitian waters he boated the first marlin over 1,000 pounds.

The offshore game fish mahi-mahi, also called dorado, takes its name from which language, where it means 'very strong'?

Hawaiian doubles a word for emphasis, giving mahi-mahi; the Spanish name dorado means golden, after flanks that fade to a dull yellow-grey once the fish dies.

The reality series Wicked Tuna follows commercial bluefin crews working out of which Massachusetts port?

Gloucester boats in the series race each other for the most profitable season, fishing under US size limits and quotas; the show ran for 13 seasons on National Geographic from 2012.

Which trolling device uses a lead 'cannonball' on a steel cable to hold a lure at a chosen depth?

Downrigger weights are usually five to twenty pounds of lead, and the fishing line is held to the cable only by a clip known as a release.

Which Montauk charter captain, a pioneer of rod-and-reel shark fishing, is said to have inspired Quint in Jaws?

Frank Mundus built his Montauk business on what he called 'Monster Fishing', then spent his last years urging shark anglers to release what they caught.

Which village in the Florida Keys is informally known as the 'Sportfishing Capital of the World'?

Islamorada owes the title to geography: it sits between the open ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, squarely on the migration routes of many large fish species.

In big-game slang, what name is given to a blue marlin that weighs in at more than 1,000 pounds?

A grander is sure to be a female: adult male blue marlin seldom exceed 330 pounds, while females can grow far beyond the 1,000-pound mark.

When a fish is hauled up fast from deep water, which internal organ over-expands as the pressure drops?

Swim bladder gas expands faster than the fish can reabsorb it, so anglers use weighted descending devices to send bloated rockfish and red snapper back to depth, where they can recover.

Which handheld pole tipped with a sharp hook is used to haul a large fish from the water into the boat?

A gaff pierces the fish, so it cannot be used on one meant to be released unharmed; 'flying' versions have a head that detaches under strain like a harpoon's dart.

Which shark, a prized big-game catch known for leaping high when hooked, is regarded as the fastest shark species?

Shortfin mako sharks are credited with bursts of up to 74 km/h, and their fast runs and acrobatic flips make them a favourite of offshore anglers.

Which trout relative divides British anglers, who cannot agree whether it is a game fish or a coarse fish?

Grayling sit in the same family as the trout and char that the gentry called game fish, yet their status is still argued over; the game-coarse divide has no taxonomic basis anyway.

A British coarse angler's long 'pole' has no reel, so how does the angler bring a hooked fish within reach?

Taking it apart, section by section, is the only way: the line is fixed to the far end of a pole that can run to 16 metres.

On British coarse fisheries, what name is given to the marked spot on the bank from which each angler fishes?

A peg is also where the money changes hands: on day-ticket waters, someone from the fishery usually walks the bank to collect the fee from each angler.

In coarse fishing, the hook bait known as a 'caster' is which stage in the life of a maggot?

The chrysalis is a favourite river bait for chub, barbel, roach, dace and bream, on a list that also runs to worm, cheese and luncheon meat.

In British coarse fishing, which method anchors the bait on the bottom with a weight instead of suspending it?

Legering takes its signals from the rod itself: the angler watches a fine, flexible 'quiver' section at the rod's end for the slightest movement.

What do carp anglers call a buoyant boilie that hovers just off the bottom, clear of weed or silt?

A pop-up is easier for carp to find and take; ordinary boilies sink, their paste boiled until a hard skin forms so they outlast bread on the hook.

Richard Walker's British record carp of 1952 went on show alive at London Zoo, where staff gave her which name?

Clarissa replaced the name her captor had chosen for the 44-pound fish, Ravioli; she reached the zoo's aquarium after he rang to have her weight checked.

Which olive-green British coarse fish was long called the 'doctor fish' because its slime was said to heal other fish?

Tench owe the nickname to folklore that any sick fish rubbing against one was cured; an artificially bred golden variety is now a popular ornamental pond fish.

In the BBC series Gone Fishing, begun after both men had serious heart problems, who goes angling with Bob Mortimer?

Paul Whitehouse invited his friend to the riverbank after learning from Mortimer's wife that he was hardly going out following a triple heart bypass in 2015.

Which chemical company, the inventor of nylon, popularised monofilament fishing line with its Stren brand in 1959?

DuPont had sold nylon line since 1939, but it was so stiff and wiry that braided lines stayed the anglers' favourite for two more decades, until the softer Stren arrived.

Nylon, the plastic behind monofilament fishing line, first went on sale in 1938 as the bristles of which everyday item?

A toothbrush beat the famous stockings to market: those were shown at the 1939 New York World's Fair and sold 64 million pairs in their first year on sale.

Modern braided 'superlines' are woven from fibres sold as Spectra or Dyneema, which are forms of which plastic?

Polyethylene in this ultra-high-molecular-weight form also goes into cut-resistant gloves, bow strings and climbing gear; as fishing line it is thinner than nylon rated for the same load.

In fly fishing, what is the fine final section of the leader, the part tied to the fly itself, called?

Tippet is sold by an 'X' size that runs backwards: 0X is the thickest diameter in the usual range and 8X the thinnest.

Which knot do big-game anglers tie to double the end of the line into a loop stronger than the line itself?

Bimini twist loops are held by the friction of their coils alone: the old standby is 20 to 30 turns in nylon and 60 or more in slippery braid.

Modern fly lines have a braided core wrapped in a thick waterproof sheath, usually made of which plastic?

PVC sheaths on floating lines are embedded with tiny air bubbles called microballoons, and may carry silicone as well to add buoyancy and cut wear.

A fly line's weight rating comes from weighing its first 30 feet in which traditional unit?

Grains are so central that some sinking lines skip the usual weight number altogether and are sold simply as, say, a 250-grain line.