Fishing: everything you ever wanted to know
Another lovely river photo by Ian Britton, courtesy of Freefoto.com.
Fishing is one of our top sports and pastimes.
There are over 4 million anglers in the UK and some 34 million people fish in the United States each year.
Anglers don't just enjoy themselves: they are at the front-line of river conservation.
They have an interest in keeping rivers clean, well-stocked, and non-polluted.
If you don't know anything about fishing, you might wonder where to start:
fishing can seem like a mysterious, priestly art that you need years to master.
Nothing is further from the truth: you can start fishing in a weekend—this
weekend, next weekend, or any weekend.
It's simple!
Start here with our comprehensive list of web pages covering every aspect of fishing.
Get yourself outside and enjoy your rivers—give them another reason to stay fantastic!
Last updated: 22 February 2008.
Contents: what's on this page?
Start here: Introductions and beginners' guides
General introductions and overviews from online encyclopedias
- Fishing: Introductory article from Wikipedia has a distinctly historical slant, covering the history of fishing (back to antiquity), traditional fishing techniques, and modern fishing.
- Fly fishing: Another introductory article from Wikipedia. A wide ranging article that covers both the practicalities of fly fishing and the culture.
- Fishing: Short article in the Columbia Encyclopedia. (The Wikipedia article is much more extensive.)
- Angling: Introductory article from Wikipedia. Currently rather pedantic and a real mish-mash, but may improve in time.
Practical beginners' guides
Angling 101: A nice introduction from Bonita Staples.- Fly fishing for beginners: The basics of fly fishing and tips for more experienced fishers too. Including how to clean your rod, how to cast, finding the fish, hooking, learning from insects, the best wet and dry flies to use, and much more.
- Hooked on flies: A fly fishing 101, with lots of good, practical information, including fly fishing knots, casting, how to present the fly, how to dress for fishing, and more.
- About: Freshwater fishing: A large collection of beginner's guides from About.com, including how to choose fishing line, how to rig worms, how to fish with spoons, etc.
- Fishing4fun.co.uk: A coarse fishing guide for the beginner and intermediate angler (mainly aimed at the UK, though the practical tips will be of interest to all readers).
- Professional Association of Anglers: The PAA website contains lots of practical angling advice, including how to land a catch, how to choose and look after your tackle, and tips about different kinds of fishing gear.
- Fishing for Beginners: A guide from BBC H2G2.
- Beginner's guide to fishing and angling in UK canals, lakes, and rivers: A guide from Waterscape.com
- Angling 101: A very active bulletin board for the angling community (mainly US)
- The beginner's guide to shore and sea fishing: Simon Day offers a guide to equipment, bait, accessories, tips, and tracks. There's also a guide on how to catch specific types of fish (currently one guide on "How to catch Mackerel using lures, feathers & floats", but more promised soon).
- Land Big Fish: Lots of information about fishing, including a directory of thousands of fishing suppliers, shops, angling schools, and other fishing-related businesses.
Fishing for kids and families
For younger children
For older children
- Get Hooked on Fishing: "Founded by Mick Watson in Durham in 2000 Get Hooked on Fishing was established to build a brighter future for young people through the sport of angling."
- Fishing for kids: A great US project to get children interested in fishing, outdoor life, and the wider community.
- The Tadpole Foundation: Another great US project: "... whose mission is to give every child the chance to go fishing. To this end, The Tadpole Foundation maintains a fishing equipment lending library, and sponsors an annual free day of fishing.".
- Tom's coarse fishing for beginners page: A complete guide from 16-year-old Tom. Unfortunately the site seems to be missing its pictures, but it's a good read all the same.
- Terrific fishing tips: Tom Cwynar shares some fishing tips for kids.
For parents
Official information
- Environment Agency: Fisheries page: Main source of official information about UK fishing, e.g. rod licences, fishing laws, etc.
- Buy your rod licence online: Any angler aged 12 years or over, fishing for salmon, trout, freshwater fish or eels in England (except the River Tweed), Wales or the Border Esk and its tributaries in Scotland must have an Environment Agency rod licence.
- US Fish and Wildlife Service: Fishing: All you need to know about fishing in the United States, including where to go fishing in a national wildlife refuge.
- Enjoying waterways - rivers, canals, lakes and reservoirs: Direct.gov, official website of the UK nanny state, explains how to find waterways near you, how to be safe near the water, and other related things.
Where to go fishing in your area?
General
Fishing in England
Fishing in Wales
Fishing in Scotland
- Fishing in Scotland: A comprehensive directory of Scottish fishing links from Fishingnet.com, including the best places to go for salmon, brown trout and sea trout angling.
- Fishing in Scotland: A guide to Scottish fishing holidays, coach tours, angling clubs, tackle shops, and more.
- Fishing in Scotland: A tourist guide to Scottish fishing. You can order the "Fishing in Scotland" brochure here, but for some reason you can't download it.
Fishing in Northern Ireland
Fishing in Ireland
- Fishing in Ireland: A complete guide to angling in Ireland: Lots of great information on planning a fishing trip, from Ireland's Central Fisheries Board.
- Shannon Regional Fisheries Board: "A Complete Angling Guide and Fisheries Resource Information to Ireland's Shannon Region". Includes information on planning your fishing holiday online, where to stay, how to buy your rod licence, and a directory of local fishing services (tackle hire, boat shops, ghillies and guides), angling schools, and more.
- Eastern Regional Fisheries Board: Lots of information about fishing on the East coast.
- Where to fish in Ireland?: A directory from The Angling Times.
- Salmon fishing on Ireland's Cork blackwater: A definite and very up-to-date set of pages.
- Fishing Ireland.com: Game and coarse fishing.
- Fishing in East Clare: Official guide from East Clare Tourism.
- Fishing in Meath: A website for people who want to come on fishing holidays to Meath. Includes information about different types of fishing, where to buy your tackle, local fishing guides you can hire, etc.
Fishing in North America
- US Fish and Wildlife Service: Fishing: All you need to know about fishing in the United States, including where to go fishing in a national wildlife refuge, .
- Fishingmap.com: A huge collection of paper fishing maps (for sale) for North American (US and Canadian) inland lakes and rivers.
- Gofish Ontario: Where to fish in Ontario, fishing trips you can hire, and more.
- Ontario Fish and Wildlife: Official info from Ontario's Ministry of Natural Resources.
- Fish'n Canada: Tournaments, articles, photo galleries, news, TV shows, and more.
Fish
- Fishbase: A huge fish database. (Described as "29600 Species, 222400 Common names, 43600 Pictures, 39200 References, 1410 Collaborators, 25 million Hits/month)".
- Fish species: A huge library of 10,000 photographs of 2000 species of fish.
- Fish identification: A great library of information about 177 common fish species.
- Fish news: Latest fish news from the Environment Agency (England and Wales).
- Identify your fish: A quick photo guide to some common sea fish caught in the UK.
Fly fishing
- Fly fishing for trout and salmon: A comprehensive guide from enthusiast Ken Baron, includes tips on fishing knots, casting, equipment, cooking techniques, fly tying, and quite a lot more.
- Fly gear: A basic introduction to the tackle you'll need to start fly fishing, from the Professional Anglers Association.
- Fly fishing: Introductory article from Wikipedia. A wide ranging article that covers both the practicalities of fly fishing and the culture.
- The Fly Fishing Guide: A nicely explained, nicely presented guide to "all things fly fishing".
- Flyfish.com: The fly fishing resource guide. Includes fishing reports from areas around the United States, shopping links, bulletin-board style forums, and a directory.
Magazines and newspapers
UK
US
Books and DVDs
If you like fishing books and DVDs, you might like to browse through the selection on the new
UK Rivers Network store, brought to you in association with Amazon.co.uk.
Organizations and groups you can join
The best place to start is the regularly updated ODP section
Recreation: Outdoors: Fishing: Associations and Clubs, which currently lists 163 groups worldwide (though a bit of a mish-mash at the moment).
UK
International
- American Sportfishing Association: "...the sportfishing industry?s trade association, committed to looking out for the interests of the entire sportfishing community."
- Carp Anglers Group: "...an organization of avid carp anglers from the United States, Canada, Great Britain and beyond."
Fishing controversies
Opponents of fishing
We like to include a balance of information on our website, so here are some links to pages and websites by people who find fishing objectionable, offensive, pointless, and cruel.
We're not expressing a view here: you can read both sides and make up your own mind.
- Fishing Hurts: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals discuss what they see as the cruelty of commercial and recreational fishing and advocate a vegetarian (fish-free) diet.
- The cruelty of fishing: An argument against fishing from Australian Animal Liberation.
- About.com explores the fishing controversy with links that are
pro-fishing
and other links that are
anti-fishing
- Vegetarians do not eat fish: Information from the UK Vegetarian Society.
Commercial overfishing
Rivers and seas can be a sustainable resource—but in too many places they're not at the moment.
According to the MSC:
"52% of fish stocks are fully exploited, which means that they are being fished at their maximum biological capacity.
24% are over exploited, depleted or recovering from depletion.
21% are moderately exploited.
Only 3% of the world's fish stocks are underexploited."
- The End of the Line: How Overfishing Is Changing the World and What We Eat: A book by Charles Clover, Daily Telegraph Environment Editor. The best, quick introduction to overfishing.
- Sustainable Fishing and Seafood: According to Environmental Defense, US fisheries are in trouble. Federal scientists report that nearly half of our managed fish populations are struggling for survival, and how others are faring is unknown.
- NRDC Wildlife and Fish: According to NRDC: "In recent years, fish populations around the world, including popular restaurant species, have declined dramatically.".
- WWF: Poorly managed fishing: "Our oceans are being plundered".
- The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation: "...conserves healthy populations of fish, wildlife and plants, on land and in the sea, through creative and respectful partnerships, sustainable solutions, and better education."
- Marine Stewardship Council (MSC): Toward a sustainable fishery. Includes fish facts, recipes, and guidance on what and where you can buy "sustainable fish".
- Overfishing: An introduction from Wikipedia.
More lighthearted
- John Wilson: An introduction from Wikipedia contains an amusing list of John's favourite sayings.
- Fishing jokes: An ongoing collection of jokes and funny video/movie clips.
- Fishing humor: More jokes along the lines: "I've spent most of my life fishing, the rest I just wasted."
Can't find what you want? Google search here!
