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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