VERY INTERESTING: FISHING

 Hello ladies and gents this is the Viking telling you that today we are talking about

Fishing 

 

Grab your fishing rod! Summer is all about getting outdoors and enjoying some time by the water. Luckily, Canada has over two million lakes, rivers and streams. Not to mention three very big oceans!

Before you cast your line and try to reel in a big one, check out these fun fishing facts. They’ll catch your attention — hook, line and sinker!

The first fishing hook

Researchers think that when humans first began fishing, they caught a meal with their hands and with nets. But there’s only so much fish you can catch that way.

Along came the fishing hook. The first fishing hook was called a gorge. It was a short, straight piece of wood, bone or stone that was pointed on both ends.

The gorge was tied to a line. Then bait was placed over it, and the hook was thrown into the water to catch a fish. Eventually, a curved fishhook made of bone, shell or wood was invented.

The oldest fish hooks ever discovered were made of sea snail shell and thought to be about 23,000 years old.

Rods and reels

An early fishing rod was a simple wooden pole that had a line tied to the end of it. They were used by early civilizations, such as in ancient Egypt and China.

By the 1400s, fishing rods had special hoops or rings on them to keep the line in place, like the ones we use today.

Fishing reels were invented by the 1600s. These reels kept the line from getting tangled and made fishing much easier.

As for early fishing line, it was made by hand using things like horse hair, silk or cotton. It wasn’t until the late 1930s that plastic fishing line came on the scene.

The name for a person who fishes with a rod and line is an angler. This term has been used since the mid-1500s when the word “angle” meant “to fish.”

More than three million Canadians enjoy fishing for fun each year. And those anglers are in luck because there are lots of fish to catch in Canadian waters.

It turns out there are about 1,200 species of fish in our lakes, rivers and streams. But get this — there are about 21,800 known species living in the oceans around the world.

And scientists say if we counted each fish in the world’s oceans, we’d come up with a total of three-and-a-half trillion!

There are lots of different ways to fish. The most popular is bait fishing — that’s when you place a piece of bait, like a worm, on a hook and cast your line into the water until a fish chomps down on it.

Others like fly fishing. In this method, an angler places a fake fly on the end of the line and moves the rod back and forth, so the fly lands on the surface of the water. Hopefully, a fish goes for the fly and can be reeled in.

Some people prefer trolling, which is when a hook or lure is dragged through the water behind a slow-moving boat.

And others actually use a kite to fish! The bait is attached to the kite which is then flown over water so that the line dangles in the water. When a fish takes the bait, the kite drops, and the angler knows it’s time to pulls the line in.

And as always have a chilled day from the Viking