Fishing Gear And Methods

Being successful at fishing largely depends on the equipment you use, so differentiating and using the right gear in the right situation is paramount. This article seeks to explain the various types of fishing equipment and the scenarios they are best used for.

Fishing gear can be generally categorized into five: nets, hooks and lines, traps, grappling devices, and stupefying devices.

The first category, nets, can be subdivided into four: trawls, dredges, seines, and gillnets. Trawls are towed nets pulled from a boat to catch fish and other certain species. While most trawls are dragged along ocean bottoms, they can also be used in mid-water. They are used to catch animals like shrimp, rockfish, and Atlantic cod. On the other hand, Dredges are shovel-like iron frames with nets attached. They are used to scrape the bottom of the sea to catch animals like clams.

Seine nets are used to catch schools of fish and are responsible for catching about 50 percent of commercial salmon in Canada. They are weighted bottom nets placed surrounding a school of fish. Purse seines then draw the bottom of the net inwards while Danish seines are pulled behind the boat to catch fish.

Gillnets are placed in the water to catch fish that try to swim through them but instead get hooked, usually by their gills. These nets catch about 25 percent of commercial salmon in Canada.

Hook and line, the next set of fishing gear, is arguably the most popular equipment associated with fishing. They come in various forms, such as longlines, which catch fish like swordfish, tunas, rockfish, cod, and handlines, capturing the same fish as the longline category. However, due to being shorter than long lines and having one hook to one line, handlines stay in the water for less time.

Another important set of fishing equipment is traps, which are passively used in enclosed spaces and often baited for target species to enter. Examples of target species caught by traps include lobster and shrimp.

Grappling devices are commonly used to target individual fish and mammals. They include harpoons, spears, and arrows and are used to catch fish like swordfish and salmon. The primary issue with most of the gear listed above seems to be the problem of bycatch. This is the unintentional capture of non-targeted species while fishing, and this may include dolphins and seabirds. However, grappling devices have very minimal bycatch.

The final category is stupefying devices. It is the least common fishing method, as it is illegal in most parts of the world. It involves using chemicals like cyanide or explosives like dynamite to stun fish to make them easier to catch. It has potentially harmful repercussions, as using chemicals may cause the fish to become poisonous. Using explosives may destroy reefs that took hundreds, if not thousands of years, to grow, thus affecting the environment.

The ability to differentiate between fishing gear, especially those that can catch the same species of fish, and the knowledge of which to use in particular scenarios will prove invaluable to successful fishing.

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The Life and Achievements of Tiger Woods

The son of Earl and Kultida Woods, a Vietnam War veteran and a philanthropist from Thailand, respectively, Eldrick Tont “Tiger” Woods was born on December, 30, 1975, in Cypress, California. Known as the best golfer of all time, Woods holds multiple records in the sport and was the leading player of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Courtesy of his father, an amateur golfer, he was introduced to the sport at a young age; indeed, in 1978, he appeared on The Mike Douglas Show, where he competed against comedian Bob Hope in a putting contest, and he appeared in Golf Digest by the time he was 5 years old.

While attending Anaheim, California’s Western High School, Woods became the youngest player to win the U.S. Junior Amateur Championship in 1991 at the age of 15, a title he successfully defended the following two years to become the event’s first and only three-time winner. Upon graduating in 1994, he matriculated at Stanford University on a golf scholarship to major in economics, and in 1996, he won his first collegiate championship and was named Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) Tour Rookie of the Year.

That same year, Woods discontinued his studies to pursue his dreams as a professional golfer. Although he received offers from several notable brands, he ultimately signed with Nike and Titleist, which were the most profitable. In 1997, he won the Masters Tournament in Georgia with a whopping record of 270 over 72 holes, a performance that rates among his most outstanding. From that time if not beforehand, his career began gaining traction as he steadily broke records. According to the Official World Golf Ranking, he holds the record for being the No. 1 player for the longest time: 683 weeks.

After undergoing laser eye surgery for myopia in 1999, Woods bounced back to play, and by July 2003, he became the youngest golfer to achieve the career Grand Slam (i.e., winning all four of golf’s major championships in the same calendar year) when he won the British Open. Upon the passing of his father in 2006, he spent some time away from golf before returning later in the season to secure over 50 wins. However, in 2007, he had once again to undergo laser eye surgery, as his eyesight had deteriorated in the intervening years. In April of the following year, he had knee surgery, followed by a car crash in 2009.

As rumors about Woods’ personal life began to surface, his career began to suffer; in addition to losing endorsements, his rankings fell, and he decided to take another break from golf and the eye of the press to address concerns raised. His return in 2010 was not a great one, which furthered the decline in his rankings. During the fall of that year, he split up with his wife and the mother of his two children, Elin Nordegren, after six years of marriage.

In the following years, Woods faced additional challenges, including those posed by back surgery in 2015 and arrest for driving under the influence in 2017. Despite the destabilizing impact of these challenges on his career, the star staged a remarkable comeback by winning the 2019 Masters after a 14-year drought. But in 2021, he was involved in another car accident. Despite the challenges posed by severe injuries sustained in this accident, he returned to the PGA Tour in the spring of 2022.

The winner of 82 PGA titles, Woods is the father of Sam and Charlie Woods and resides in Jupiter Island, Florida. Having appeared on Forbes’ list of the highest-paid athletes, his net worth stands at $800 million. Moreover, he is an author and a cofounder with his father of TGR Foundation.

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