The History of Angling and Modern Trends

   The sport we all know and love fishing, was originally referred to as angling. By definition angling is the sport of catching fish with a hook and line. Fishing gave man food when game and harvest were scarce due to winter, drought, flood, and even snow and ice.  History leaves a clear and trackable trail of the development of angling through the years.   

 Egyptian hieroglyphics display angling scenes of about 2000 BC with figures fishing with rod and line and also with nets. Chinese artifacts and history dating back to the 4th century refers to fishing with a silk line, a hook made from a needle, and a bamboo rod, using cooked rice as bait.

References to fishing are also found in the Christian Bible and Greek, Assyrian, Roman, and Jewish histories and documents.    

 The first anglers development of a tool known as a gorge, which was a small, less than one inch piece of wood, bone, or stone sharpened at both ends and secured off-center to a string. The gorge was then baited with an insect or meat. And the early angler would wait for a fish to swallow the gorge and then pull on the line wedging the device across the mouth or throat of the fish and then pulling it in. This practice of a hand line worked well in small steams and from boats, but the method soon evolved into attaching the to a stick or tree branch, which made it possible