Techniques

There are many techniques for fishing. Fishermen may use hooks and fishing line and a fishing rod.Fishing nets, fish traps, and trap nets may be used to capture fish. Lobster and crab pots use a similar method. Hand fishing consists of fishing with the hands or through the use of minimal equipment. In spear fishing, the fish is killed using an ordinary spear or a specialized variant thereof. Closely related to spear fishing is bow fishing. Trained animals can assist in fishing; one notable example is Asian cormorant fishing.

Kite fishing allows the fisherman to cast far into the water, even without a boat. Dredging is sometimes used to scoop scallops or oysters from the seabed. Poisonous plants can be used to stun fish so that they become easy to collect by hand; cyanide can also be used. Other fishing techniques include electrofishing and dynamite fishing. Bottom trawling, seining, driftnetting, handlining, longlining, gillnetting and diving are widely used techniques. A recent non-traditional approach using a radio-controlled boat is called remote control fishing.