For over a thousand years, fishermen all over the world have been using cormorants to help them fish in lakes and rivers. In Gifu, Gifu Prefecture, Japan, cormorant fishing on the Nagara river has continued uninterrupted for the past 1,300 years. In Guilin and Yangshuo, China, cormorant birds are famous for fishing on the shallow Lijiang River. The islands of the Beaver Island archipelago in Northern Lake Michigan host what may be the densest concentration of the big, black diving birds on the continent, an estimated 50,000 that eat about 9 million pounds of fish from the surrounding waters from spring through fall. Fishermen and tourism interests want the state and federal governments to cut the number of double-crested cormorants around the Beaver Island group by half, raising the ire of bird lovers and animal-rights activists who say the cormorants aren't at the root of the problem.
posted on Jul 1, 2008 - View this thread

Pregnancy Boom at Gloucester High As summer vacation begins, 17 girls at Gloucester High School are expecting babies—more than four times the number of pregnancies the 1,200-student school had last year. Some adults dismissed the statistic as a blip. Others blamed hit movies like Juno and Knocked Up for glamorizing young unwed mothers. But principal Joseph Sullivan knows at least part of the reason there's been such a spike in teen pregnancies in this Massachusetts fishing town.
posted on Jun 19, 2008 - View this thread

Scientists find monkeys who know how to fish. Apparently, they're not the first. Although they might be the first to do so without tools. I, for one, want some sashimi.
posted on Jun 10, 2008 - View this thread

With spring here, fishing seasons are opening across the country. Want to learn how to fly fish or get better at it? Tom Rosenbauer, author of many a book on the subject, now offers a weekly podcast.
posted on Apr 23, 2008 - View this thread

Seventy four years ago, something happened off La Jolla Shores, California, that changed the world of ocean recreation forever. An invitation-only group of watermen, the Bottom Scratchers became the founding fathers of free diving. Although the club would eventually grow to only 20 members, the men did everything they could to grow the sport and teach others how to spear fish, keep a good spear gun or get lobsters and abalone on breath-held dives.
posted on Feb 14, 2008 - View this thread

Mr. Show skits that became reality . (Warning: mature language)
posted on Feb 6, 2008 - View this thread

"Hello, and welcome to Mainly For Men (part 1, part 2). And, as the title implies, this is a programme, fellas, just for you." Yes, everything the BBC thought the red-blooded male back in the late 1960s would be interested in (ie women, cars and shark fishing). The result was so hideous it was never broadcast until a TV Hell themed night many years later. Possibly NSFW... some brief nudity ('artistic', naturally) and mild swearing. And rampant mind-blowing sexism.
posted on Nov 29, 2007 - View this thread

Here's an odd unforeseen consequence of the Columbian drug trade: fishermen along Nicaragua's Mosquito Coast have been been getting rich off of "white lobster"—cocaine dumped overboard by Columbian drug traffickers that, through a fortuitous arrangement of sea currents, washes ashore.
posted on Oct 31, 2007 - View this thread

Vigilante conservationists or racist thugs? Some residents of northern Ontario towns claim Torontonians without fishing licenses are poaching in public waters. Their solution? Sneak up behind the anglers and throw them (and their gear) in the lake. After a 13-year old and a 72-year old were both dunked, the most recent incident ended in a car chase that put a 23-year old in a coma. The catch? All the victims are Asian. The locals call it nipper-tipping.
posted on Oct 20, 2007 - View this thread

Armless Hunters
posted on Sep 12, 2007 - View this thread

Taj Mahal (sound alert) has been delighting audiences for more than 40 years since his debut with Ry Cooder in the pacesetting Rising Sons. He's a multi-instrumentalist most noted for blues, but his life's work spans gospel, Caribbean, Hawaiian and many other genres. Much respected by fellow musicians, he's a 2-time Grammy winner and official blues artist of MA. He loves to go fishin' and if you like fishing too, you can join him on his next Taj Mahal Fishing Blues Tournament, a benefit to aid southern musicians. [more Taj music inside]
posted on Aug 26, 2007 - View this thread

As a follow up to this post, photographer & Alaskan fisherman Corey Arnold has several amazing galleries up at his personal portfolio (and yay, it's not in Flash!). Favorite galleries include Bering Sea (1 & 2), Arctic-ness & Lofoten.
posted on Aug 15, 2007 - View this thread

Extreme aerial bowfishing!
posted on Aug 14, 2007 - View this thread

5 types of Chinese fish subject to temporary import ban. Melamine in farmed fish. The safety of fish farming in question. Are we risking a trade war with China over food? Some see an upside to food globalization. China's loss may be the Gulf Coast's gain. Previously on Mefi
posted on Jun 28, 2007 - View this thread

How to be an Alaskan fisherman is a fantastic photoessay by Corey Arnold targeted to any armchair crab hunters who've watched a few episodes of Deadliest Catch, about how to go from being a teenager in California to working one of America's most tortuous & lethal jobs.Via
posted on May 18, 2007 - View this thread

Satellite images reveal shrimp trawlers' turbulent trails. Vessels turn firm sea bottoms into ooze, destroying habitats. [Via Gristmill.]
posted on May 12, 2007 - View this thread

Fishing Hurts is a new website from PETA aimed at getting people to stop fishing. No one would consider doing to a dog what some so casually do to fish—trick them into impaling themselves in the mouth and pull them into an environment where they can't breathe. But the fact is—fish feel pain just as all animals do. When it comes to feelings, a child is a dog is a fish.
posted on Mar 12, 2007 - View this thread

The story began quietly enough on May 18, 2002, when an angler caught an 18 inch fish in a Crofton, Maryland pond. In 2005 a fisherman is reported saying "We would throw one in the cooler, two others would jump out and we'd have to chase them through the woods." Frankenfish, timeline of the snakehead story in the USA. The snakehead is a voracious, predatorial fish, capable of walking, attacking men, living up to 4 days out of water and now spreading from state to state. Video of snakeheads eating (disturbing). Another kind of snakehead, the smuggler of humans. Mentioned previously on MetaFilter. [via]
posted on Jan 6, 2007 - View this thread

These are not your father's fly tying handiwork. Anglers have been fooling fish with feathers for generations. Graham Owen takes fly tying to the next level with flies that catch fish, and some that even catch more flies.
posted on Dec 18, 2006 - View this thread

Fisher Poets You've heard of cowboy poetry, sure, but how about the verse of modern-day fishermen and women? Taking the Cowboy Poetry Gathering as their model, fisher poets have plunged into the celebration of occupational culture with their own annual festival in Astoria, Oregon. Get a glimpse into this difficult, dangerous, and unpredictable way of making a living through the work of Erin Frestad, Geno Leech, Toby Sullivan, and others. Listen to the sounds of the gathering on this piece from PRI's Here & Now, too.
posted on Nov 3, 2006 - View this thread

Air and water. Photographer and professional diver Emmanuel Donfut takes not-completely-underwater pictures. His latest series involves both fish and fishermen caught in the act, but he's been interested in other aquatic creatures, and alcoholic ones as well. More pics here, and more on the technique used here.
posted on Apr 28, 2006 - View this thread

Wade in the Water In 2004, Smithsonian Folklife Festival featured the maritime cultures of the Mid-Atlantic region, from Long Island to North Carolina. Now, this site gives a home on the web to the cultural documentation gathered for the festival -- music, recipes, stories and oral history, an interactive map, the occupational folklore and natural history of regional fisheries, photos, video, and more. The material, ably compiled by folklorists and educators, creates a lasting and very accessible archive of festival highlights as well as an excellent overview of the distinct coastal culture of the Mid-Atlantic. Don't miss the great menhaden net-hauling chantey Help Me to Raise 'Em (links to mp3).
posted on Mar 27, 2006 - View this thread

How Many Fish are in the Sea? During the heady days of the late 19th century, in response to a perceived decline in coastal finfish stocks, Spencer Baird and his clutch of young naturalists at the Smithsonian set out to find the answer. In 1871, Baird founded the U.S. Fish Commission. The Comission set up operations in Woods Hole, MA, where it continues its work today as the Northeast Fisheries Science Center (a branch of NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service). The Fish Census of 1880 established the fist benchmark on fish populations in coastal waters; crews of Gloucester schooners competed to see who could bring the most bizarre fish finds up from the platueaus of the Grand Banks, and America’s first research vessel, the Albatross, was purpose-built for the project. Baird's protege (and later successor) George Brown Goode compiled the data into the first comprehensive reference work on American fisheries. Known to students of salt water as “Goode’s Fisheries”, the report (beautifully illustrated) remains invaluable to researchers today, as today's fish populations dip into an even more drastic decline.
posted on Nov 30, 2005 - View this thread

Okie Noodling... why not take it straight to the fishies! Noodling, aka tribbling, hogging, or hand fishing is the art of catching catfish using your hand as bait (or your arm for the big ones). These guys root around river banks like muskrats in search of their quarry, but sometimes encounter snakes, snapping turtles, or beavers. Imagine having a 30 to 60 pound catfish chomp on your arm! If you are ever inclined to get in touch with your animal side, this is a pretty good place to start.
posted on Oct 21, 2005 - View this thread

Giant Mako Shark Video
On Friday some fishheads in Pensacola, FL, cruising only 300 yards off the beach came up on a 10' mako shark that happened to be munching on what might have been (before it got munched) a world record tarpon. The video is almost 8 min. long and there are some good shots of the shark near the boat. It is also rich in loud, NSFW language. BTW, the mako is the only shark known to jump when hooked.
posted on Apr 24, 2005 - View this thread

The art of George Aden "Twok" Ahgupuk: Denali, oomiak, blanket toss, whale hunt, caribou, and quite a few more subjects. Don't miss the fourth-graders.
posted on Mar 23, 2005 - View this thread

Inside the mind of a paranoid schizophrenic. Memorize the keywords with which the lizards of the stage world will attempt to distort your reality. Can you accept your own vampirism? Are you familiar with the most common reality fishing techniques and horse movements? This is the painstaking record of a man for whom delusions have completely overtaken reality. Spend some time with it - the detail is mind-numbing and the reality he has created is utterly insane... and occasionally convincing. Mirror in case Geocities croaks.
posted on Mar 17, 2005 - View this thread

The Starving Ocean : A large collection of articles by Debbie MacKenzie on the death of the ocean. The idea is that removing most of the fish from the sea might be sort of bad for the marine ecosystem as a whole. Her writing style is a bit kooky, but she has been right on some points (ie. the Grey Seal thing). Oh, and fishing is also responsible for the rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
posted on Sep 14, 2004 - View this thread

Big Fish! 14 year old Bobby Capri Jr. catches a 52 pound striped bass in a kayak off the Atlantic City shore. But he's not the first kid to reel in a big fish. The adult world record for striped bass was also caught in New Jersey. So, who here has the best fish story?
posted on Jun 30, 2004 - View this thread

Trout Stomach Pump : Summer's almost here, so you'd best start looking for clues. " Finally I observe what the fish are actually feeding on. To do this I have to catch a fish. This is frequently the hardest part, but I can usually scam one up somehow. I then pump it's stomach.....while securely holding the fish I gently insert the tube down the fishís throat as far as I can. I take particular care not to injure the fish during this process.....The suction created by the pump extracts the stomach contents. I carefully release the fish unharmed into the water (I have never lost a fish in this process). Then I squeeze the bulb and deposit the fish's stomach contents into my hand.  It is then a simple process to match the stomach contents to the contents of my fly box"
posted on May 24, 2004 - View this thread

Frozen seas. A brief but kind of amazing collection of photos of the deck of a fishing trauler in fridgid conditions, where every exposed surface has layers of frozen saltwater accumulated. This condition can cause the boat to become topheavy and capsize, as well as just plain making life more miserable for those that work on the deck.
posted on May 3, 2004 - View this thread

Noodling: Catching monster catfish with your bare hands. Personally, I'd rather go fishing with a pole. But, I still find this technique fascinating.
posted on Jan 14, 2004 - View this thread

The SalmoFan: So long, and thanks for all the fish and animals, and plants... Amidst the catastrophic decline of large ocean fish, Salmon farmers can choose the hue of their "farmed" Salmon with the SalmoFan. [Meanwhile, these same salmon are fed on a factory fishing catch process which effectively strips most large life forms from the ocean.] With 1/4 of all mammmals and 1/2 of all plant species facing extinction, Is the planet truly at a crossroads? Are we losing the extinction battle? .."Overfishing is a global problem. People are taking marine life faster than it can reproduce. The world's catch peaked at 86 million tons in 1989, up fourfold in 50 years.....But many governments, including the United States, Mexico, the European Union, Japan and China, kept on pouring subsidies into commercial fishing fleets to keep them afloat...The Gulf of California in Mexico is not dead, but it is exhausted from overfishing, which has caused every important species of fish there to decline....Crucial fisheries have collapsed worldwide."

Contrast that with This: "[once upon a time there were] cod shoals "so thick by the shore that we hardly have been able to row a boat through them." There were six- and seven-foot-long codfish weighing as much as 200 pounds. There were great banks of oysters as large as shoes. At low tide, children were sent to the shore to collect 10-, 15-, even 20-pound lobsters with hand rakes for use as bait or pig feed. Eight- to 12-foot sturgeon choked New England rivers, and salmon packed streams from the Hudson River to Hudson's Bay. Herring, squid and capelin (a small open-water fish seven inches long) spawning runs were so gigantic they astonished observers for more than four centuries"
posted on May 27, 2003 - View this thread

What's a couple of hours? Some men fishing made a gruesome discovery - a human head. The men placed it in a garbage bag. Then they kept right on fishing: "We didn't want to come in right away… It'd been out there awhile."
posted on Aug 28, 2002 - View this thread

Science doesn't always take place in labs, and scientists aren't always the right folks to turn to for answers. Sometimes you just have to ask a lobsterman. [more inside]
posted on Mar 23, 2002 - View this thread

Complete collapse of North Atlantic fishing predicted. North Atlantic catches have fallen by half since 1950, despite a tripling of the effort put into catching them. "We'll all be eating jellyfish sandwiches."
posted on Feb 21, 2002 - View this thread

Honk Kong's reclaimation efforts for Disney are killing its fishing industry. Is this the proper way to reclaim land? It looks like HK would happily trade away its dwindling fishing industry for a Disney business opportunity. I can't decide if this is economic progress or a very risky trade between a market that produces goods (fish) and one that produces a service (entertainment). I can't read this and not think of Paris' Eurodisney disaster. I wonder how the one in Tokyo is doing.
posted on Nov 23, 2001 - View this thread

Rodents will swim for fresh tuna? "Wrecked Taiwanese tuna vessel. Still had tons of tuna on board. Thousands of rats had taken over ship with relatively unlimited food supply." The boat is in open water. Maybe the rats sent out a reconnaisance team first? Do they really swim that well or could it be the tide goes down and they run for it? If they do swim that well, how did they get on to the boat?
posted on Sep 25, 2001 - View this thread

Virtual Carp fishing - Strangely compelling. Wait for the screens to refresh.
posted on Sep 25, 2001 - View this thread