It is known that people have been fishing since the oldest ages. Fishing hooks made of bone dating back 5,000 years ago and similar to those used today were found.
In 3000 BC, the Chinese produced mullets in salt-filled ponds. The ancient Romans were also growing carp and fresh mullets in ponds and aquariums. Fish breeding with these methods continued until the end of the Middle Ages but was abandoned on these dates. However, in the nineteenth century, the French government re-introduced fish production.
Today, many countries of the world, large-scale fish production is done. Carp, trout, and salmon are mostly produced in ponds. Endangered fish species are also grown in ponds. Two different methods are used in the production of freshwater fish. For example, carp are produced in large ponds where it can supply its nutrients from the natural environment in the water. In the production of trout, many fish are kept together in a small area in a narrow and long or rounded pond to get better results. However, in these ponds, the fish should be fed with feed and the water should be changed periodically in order to provide the necessary oxygen. Production farms have been established in the seas for saltwater fish in various countries, especially in Japan.
Other sea animals such as oysters, mussels and hermit crabs are also grown in some coastal waters. Naturally propagated larvae or offspring reared in a marine production farm can multiply when left in a suitable environment. Large scale shrimps are also produced in marine farms in some Far Eastern countries.
Freshwater Fishing
Before the fishing rods were found, the fishing line was manually wrapped around a cork or piece of wood. When the fish was hooked, the fisherman would pull the fish to the shore with quick movements. But this type of hunting was not easy. There would be problems such as fishing line getting tangled and knotted.
However, it is very easy to hunt with reel fishing. The reel facilitates winding and, if necessary, loosening of the line. For example, if the fish caught in the fishing rod resists with hard movements, the fishing line is discharged and the fish is given way. When fatigue and slowdown of the fish are seen, the fishing line is rewound and the fish is pulled. But when fishing with reel fishing, you need to know when to unline the line and when to reel. The fishing line also has strength. It should be taken into account in the face of the traction of the fish in a rapid discharge. When a big fish is caught, it is necessary to loosen the line and give way to the fish once in a while to break its resistance. As a result, tired fish can be drawn more easily.
One of the important points of hunting is to choose the appropriate fishing hook. According to the fish to be hunted, there are hooks of different sizes and shapes. But at the end of all fishing hooks, there is a palate that stuck in the mouth of the fish which prevents its escape. The hook also has a ring on the handle. The “shackle, made of animal gut, nylon or steel wire is passed through this ring and attached to the hook.
Fish are caught with various baits. Live or inanimate feeds are passed to the palate at the end of the hook. Insects, worms, small frogs or very small fish compared to the fish to be hunted are the most commonly used live food. Foods such as dough, bread, boiled wheat, cheese or artificial feeds such as feather pieces and artificial flies are used as inanimate feed.
Fishing with a fishing line requires mastery. It is necessary to know where the fish can be found, whether it is on the surface or bottom of the water. On the other hand, it is necessary to be able to throw or lower the fishing line where the fish is looking for bait. For example, for all the freshwater fish except salmon and trout fishing, the fishing line is dropped to the bottom to hunt. Fly fishing is commonly used for hunting salmon, trout, shark, chub, and rudd. In order to throw away the artificial fly, the reed must be very flexible and have a thick line at the end. A 2-3 meter long body made of intestine or nylon is attached to the end of the hook and the hook at the end of the body is tied with artificial flies made of feather pieces, fur, silk, and shiny wires.
Angling
Reed fishing is quite common among the methods of fishing especially from shore and small boats. In its simplest form, the fishing line consists of a transparent colored nylon-based solid fishing line and a special hook for catching fish. However, for easier use, advanced fishing rods are produced according to the purpose.
Telescopic Fishing Rod
It is a type of fishing line used for fishing from the shore with the throw-pull method. They are produced telescopically, a 6-meter long fishing pole can be intertwined for easy transport and can be reduced to 1.5 meters in length. It also has a motorized and armed machine for winding the line easily and without interference. The fishing rod is made of a flexible material and the top part is the thinnest part.
When the fish is caught, the top thin part of the fishing pole begins to transmit the movement of the fish by stretching and moving. Thanks to the length of the fishing pole, it is possible to throw the fishing hook 50-70 meters forward. Of course, a heavy enough sinker must be attached to the end of the fishing line.
Fishing Rod Length Selection
The length of the fishing rod that an amateur fisherman will initially receive should be approximately 3.5 meters. More skilled fishermen use 4.5 meters as reed fishing rod.
Ideal Fishing Rod Pattern
In order to prepare an ideal fishing line, first of all, what kind of fish to be hunted should be chosen. Each fish has a different feed choice, swimming speed, and feeding type. For example, behind a boat traveling at a speed of 10 knots, it should be known that fishing is not possible when a fishing rod is left to catch bluefish.
The maximum speed of bluefish is between 3-4 knots. In order to make an ideal fishing pattern, depth, discharge in the region, fishing line thickness, swivel size, and the possibility of tangling of the fishing line should be considered. An ideal fishing line should be formed considering swivels, hooks, and sinker weight ranking.
Throw-Pull Fishing Method (Coastal Fishing)
It is possible to catch fish such as horse mackerel, sardine, sea bream, bream and so on via coastal fishing. It can be done with feed or using feather in the form of feed. Reed fishing rod, fishing line, swivel, and sinker is chosen according to the region/fish type. For hunting small fish such as sardines and horse mackerel, 0.25 fishing line, 10 feather trotline, about 3.5 meters fishing pole, fine swivel, and 25 g of sinker can be used. Where the current is high, up to 50-100 grams of sinkers may be preferred. For larger fish such as sea bream, 0.30 fishing line, and as a feed, shrimp, chicken breast or sardine can be used. In the same way, a swivel and 25 g lead can be used.
Location Selection
The biggest problem of the coastal fishermen is the rupture of the fishing rods as a result of sinkers and hooks attached to the rocks on the seafloor. Therefore, when choosing the location, you should have an idea about the bottom of the sea more or less. Likewise, if you will use throw and pull method, a slow-going sinker may be used. The heavy sinker will allow the fishing rod to sink quickly.
Surf Casting
When people first interested in fishing, usually the first type of fishing they try is Surf Casting. Since it is a fairly simple pre-application system, almost anyone can try it. The aim is to capture the fish that give the image in the waters with a simple reed, fishing line, hook, and bait. When you get bored of this preliminary application, it becomes necessary to attract larger fish and to form a team accordingly. I will soon try to give the necessary fishing gear, pasture, and hunting tactics to do this job properly.
You see the bottom of the water partially and there is no movement down. If the conditions indicate that there may be fish here, you should feed immediately. First of all, you should realize that the purpose of use in Surf Casting Fishing Tackle is on pulling the fish through the feed. For this reason, we must make the right choice of hunting places first. For this, it is important to know some rules. For example, the observation of fish that can be seen in the water, the choice of the underwater structure as sandy, etc. In addition, the status of currents, areas where freshwater meets the sea, leaks in underwater and the effects of waves should also be considered.
In particular, the following rules must be followed to make fishing from the shore;
A) Selecting the fishing hook according to the target fish
B) The body should be relatively thinner than the mainline
C) Using Swivel to prevent the line from scaling
D) Strength of the fishing line according to the weight of the fish you will hunt
E) Precautions to prevent the team from breaking while pulling large fish
Apart from this list, there are still rules that will benefit the hunt. I will share them with you as the time comes. Therefore, let’s take a look at the team we should form in coastal fishing by taking these rules into consideration.
Knowing that you should not exaggerate when hunting with Surf Casting and general cast tackles can give you an advantage. For example, you cannot hunt large (700-800gr) red sea bream, bream, striped sea bream, ships head bream, white seabream, or saddled sea bream from the coast. For this reason, it is more appropriate to make a combination of a hook and fishing line according to this when preparing the team. Because it is seen that at most 250-350 gr fishes are caught from the coast in statistical terms. Then comes 350-500 and rarely 600-900 gr fish. Of course, we all know that 2-3 pounds of fish caught, but this only happens when you make a target fish having that weight. This is a business that requires patience and experience.
As a result, my advice is not to attach your mind to the big fish for coastal hunting, instead focus on more hunter fishing gear that can easily take up to 350-400 grams of fish. Thus, fishing will be more fertile, as well as more enjoyable. Because the hunter gears feature that they can take all kinds of fish.
Amateur Sea Fishing
In amateur sea fishing, the same fishing gear used in freshwater fishing is used. But reed and fishing lines should be more robust. To sink the fishing line deeper, heavier sinkers should be selected and bigger hooks should be used to catch the big fish. Shrimp, mussels, and worms are used as bait for hunting whiting, cod, and flatfish that live at the bottom or near the bottom. Mackerel and bluefish, on the other hand, are hunted from a moving boat by spoon or natural bait.
A spearfishing line is one of the most used types in sea fishing. At the end of this fishing rod sounder body, shackles made of brass wire is connected at regular intervals. The name of this fishing rod comes from these shackles. Short shims are attached to the shackles and hooks are attached to the ends of the shims. Live bait is used for fishing with shackles. The fishing rod is kept taut during hunting and the fish is gently shaken when the fish jumps. Then it is quickly withdrawn without allowing the fish to get rid of the hook.
Trotline, which is widely used for fishing in the sea, is also a kind of shackle. However, live bait is not used in trotline; instead, artificial feeds such as turkey, goose and chicken feathers are generally used. The anchor consists of a fishing line (reel or cork line), a swivel that prevents the line from circulating, a body that is made from a fishing line and extends from the swivel to the sounding, and the endmost sounding. At certain intervals, shackles of short fishing line pieces with hooks attached to the ends are attached to the body. A small fishing rod with 10 shackles (10 hooks) is enough to catch small fish such as horse mackerel. But the number of shackles on the trotline goes up to 35 in acorn hunt, and up to 55 in large acorn and bluefish hunt.
Large sea fish such as swordfish, tuna, and tarpon, some of which weigh half a ton, can also be caught from a moving boat. This requires a very thick and solid reed and a fishing line with a length of at least 360 meters. In this type of fishing, the fisherman rests the tip of the reed on a special belt that he attaches to his waist. It is not easy to attract such heavy fish caught on the hook and to resist their resistance. The fish caught for him is followed by a boat until he gets tired. After a long time, the fisherman wraps the fishing line and brings the fish closer to the boat. The caught fish is either taken to the boat or taken to the harbor on the backup of the boat. In Ernest Hemingway’s novel Old Man and the Sea, an old fisherman who catches a big fish with a fishing line is described in detail in his struggle to draw this fish to the shore.
Commercial Fishing Methods
Some of the marine fish live near the surface of the water and these are called surface fish. For example, herring, sardines, anchovies, tuna, and mackerel are surface fish. The fish living close to the bottom of the sea or at the bottom of the sea are called bottom fish. Dip fish, cod, whiting, hake, and all flatfish can be given as examples to bottom fish.
The basis of commercial fishing is based on net fishing. Different nets are used according to the characteristics of the fish and the depth of the water in which it lives. The most commonly used net is the trawl net. The trawl net resembles a large bag in the form of a cone and its mouth is about 30 meters wide. Wooden boards are placed on both sides to keep the mouth open while the net is discarded. These wooden boards, called “doors”, are also connected to the trawler with steel cables. Bottom trawling is usually used to hunt bottom fish where the bottom of the sea is not rugged. The trawl net, which is dropped from the trawler boat, is dragged by the boat and the net collects the fish on its way by scanning the seabed. Dragging the net takes about 1.5-3 hours. Then the net is pulled with the help of a crane and the fish in it are discharged into the boat. After the fish are cleaned and washed, they are buried in ice in the hatch of the boat and stored. In some large and advanced trawlers, the fish are frozen in the cooling devices after cleaning. Such boats may stay at sea longer and continue to hunt.
One of the methods used in hunting some of the bottom fish is the log reel. The log, a thick fishing line, has about 1,000 bait hooks spaced apart. During hunting, the flippers are left at the bottom of the sea and their location is determined by buoys. The fish are taken from the sea for 24 hours and the hooks are re-attached to the bait. Some surface fish, such as tuna, are caught with the above-the-water logs attached to the buoys. Surrounding nets are also used to catch bottom fish. In this hunting form, the area where the fish is dense is surrounded by nets, and then the fish are driven towards the bag-shaped part of the net.
Purse seiners and middle water trawl are the most commonly used forms of fishing for surface fish. In purse seine hunting, the school of fish is turned into a net that is perpendicular to the water. The bottom of the net is then shrunk and closed by pulling the ropes. With the help of a crane, the fish in the net drawn to the purse seine boat are pumped with big buckets or water and taken to the boat. In the middle water trawl, a net larger than the bottom trawl is left to the depth where the fish are found and pulled by one or two boats.
One of the oldest methods used in marine fish hunting is the Fishgarth. This method has been used since ancient times. In this method, networked pools are created near the shore. The mouths of the ponds are left open and when the fish enters the rim, the mouth is closed with another net. The fish in Fishgarth are collected by another net and taken to the boat.
Gillnet (flat net) is used for the hunting of some fish such as acorn, bluefish, mackerel, and horse mackerel. The gill nets, usually 1 km or more, are left in the sea, hanging like a curtain. In this method of fishing, the net can either be tied down to one end by anchoring the iron weight or drifting on the water surface by boat. At this time, the head of the fish that swims quickly through the net passes through the holes of the net, but cannot come back out of the hole because its gills are attached.
Some fish, such as tuna, mackerel, and bluefish think they can eat anything that shimmers in the water. Shiny metal spoons with triple hooks on the tip resemble a small fish.
