Whether on the shelves in the store, your dinner plate, or the simchah buffet, ever wondered how that delicious fillet of salmon made it there? ,Go Fish!,Whether on the shelves in the store, your dinner plate, or the simchah buffet, ever wondered how that delicious fillet of salmon made it there?
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We live on a wet planet where three quarters of earth’s surface is water. So it’s not surprising that fishing has always been important to man.
No one knows for sure who the first fishermen were but we know from archaeological records that man has been fishing for a long time. Native Americans on the California coast were known to fish with hooks and lines thousands of years ago. Ancient Egyptian fishermen used woven nets spread out from simple reed boats and the Romans and Greeks fished with rods and lines too. But there are other ways to catch a fish! Spearing the fish with a barbed pole called a harpoon was common in ancient times and still done in some remote regions. Some tribes even use natural plant poisons to kill the fish. And in Sri Lanka the fishermen walk into the sea on stilts to catch the fish.
Modern fishing gear hasn’t changed much since ancient times. Nets traps harpoons rods and lines are still used across the world. But the scale of the operation has changed enormously. Today huge commercial fishing boats roam the oceans for up to six months at a time catching thousands of tons of fish. Nets and lines are bigger too.
“Longlines” are just that — long lines with thousands of baited hooks on them spread out in the ocean for as much as an incredible 50 miles. And the nets got deeper as well. Gillnets are nets that hang vertically in the water held down with weights which can reach right down to the sea bed in some places. The huge nets of today are so big that it would take far too long to haul them into the boat by hand so most big commercial fishing boats have mechanical winches to pull the nets in.
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