Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Fishing Posted By : urlreader

The serious aspect to fishing without using a net involves hunting for fish while using a fishing rod that has a hook or other means of trapping the fish. Also, fishing does not just refer to catching fish only. It can also encompass catching different aquatic creatures such as shellfish, squid, octopuses, turtles or even frogs or other kinds of marine invertebrates. However, when you try to extend the meaning to also encompass landing a whale, the term that is more appropriate is whaling and not fishing.

Fishing, as everyone knows, is an activity that has been known to man since the very earliest times of his existence and it has been practiced all over the world from thousands of years ago. Though techniques may have varied the traditions associated with this activity are dependent on geographical locations, races, as well as different inventions.

The original purpose of fishing was to fill the belly. But in the modem times, it is more of a recreational and even professional activity. Today, it is believed that there are as many as thirty-eight million fishermen. Fisheries also provide both direct as well as indirect employment to more than two hundred million people everywhere on this planet.

The origins of fishing date back to the Paleolithic period, which was approximately forty thousand years ago. During that period man was more of a hunter-gatherer. This required that he had to fish to fill his belly. Later, the Neolithic period saw new ways of farming and creating pottery items. This in turn changed the way that man fished, and those methods are still being used in our modem times.

The Nile River in Egypt had an abundance of fish, and the Egyptians found it expedient to invent a number of implements with which to fish. Their fishing methods were also illustrated in some tomb scenes as well as drawings and on papyrus documents. The Greeks, on the other hand, did not consider fishing to be a high status activity and thus there is little representation of this activity in their culture.

Still, fishing has been the subject of much ancient literature. These mainly referred to the use of nets and fishing gear, though not much detail was given of these items and the descriptions were general, at best. In the beginning, fishing was also done by hand and very little equipment was used. The British Isles is famous for the tradition of catching trout by hand. This activity was known as trout tickling and it was even included in several Shakespearean plays.


Source: http://www.reprint-content.com/Article/Fishing/163120

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