The oldest hooks were made from shells
In 2016 archaeologists working in Sakitari Cave on the Japanese island of Okinawa reported two fish hooks carved from sea snail shells, about 23,000 years old — among the oldest ever found. People have caught fish with spears, traps and a NET for far longer, but a HOOK on a LINE lets one person catch fish in deep water from the bank.
The word ANGLER comes from angle, an old English word for a fishhook. In 1653 Izaak Walton published The Compleat Angler, a mix of fishing advice, songs and conversation about the pleasures of a quiet day by the RIVER. It has been reprinted hundreds of times and is one of the most published books in English.
Reading a float
Much freshwater fishing in Britain relies on a FLOAT, which Americans usually call a BOBBER: a small painted stick that sits upright in the water above the baited hook. When a fish takes the BAIT, the float twitches, dips, or lies flat, and each movement tells an experienced angler something about what is happening underneath.
To CAST is to swing the ROD so the weight of the line and float carries it out over the water, while the REEL lets line run off. A LURE works the other way: instead of bait, it is a shiny or brightly coloured object pulled through the water to look like a small fish or insect, tempting predators to strike. A WORM remains the classic bait, and PATIENCE the classic requirement. Quiet matters too: fish have a lateral line, a row of tiny sensors along each side of the body that picks up vibrations in the water, so heavy footsteps on the bank can warn every fish nearby long before a hook arrives.
Salmon find their way home
A SALMON hatches in a river, swims down to the sea, spends several years travelling sometimes thousands of kilometres across the ocean, and then returns to breed in the same river where it began — often the same stretch of gravel. Scientists believe it navigates at sea partly by sensing the Earth's magnetic field, and finds its home stream at the end by smell.
Leaping up waterfalls on the way back, salmon can clear jumps of several metres, and most stop eating once they re-enter fresh water. Our rivers page covers the journeys those rivers make too.
Catch and release, and a fish called Benson
In much of British freshwater fishing, the CATCH is returned alive. Anglers use hooks without barbs, a soft landing NET and wet hands to handle fish, and put them back quickly. One common carp, known to anglers as Benson, lived at Bluebell Lakes in Northamptonshire and was caught and released more than sixty times over the years, becoming famous among carp fishers before she died in 2009.
In England and Wales, anyone aged 13 or over needs a rod licence to fish for freshwater FISH. The rest of the grid holds the TACKLE box and BUCKET, the LAKE, the POND and the BOAT, all waiting for a quiet morning.