List of Fishing Techniques - Hand Fishing

Hand Fishing

It is possible to fish and gather many sea foods with minimal equipment by using the hands. Gathering seafood by hand can be as easy as picking shellfish or kelp up off the beach, or doing some digging for clams or crabs. The earliest evidence for shellfish gathering dates back to a 300,000 year old site in France called Terra Amata. This is a hominid site as modern Homo sapiens did not appear until around 50,000 years ago.

• Flounder tramping - Every August, the small Scottish village of Palnackie hosts the world flounder tramping championships where flounder are captured by stepping on them.

• Noodling: is practiced in the United States. The noodler places his hand inside a catfish hole. If all goes as planned, the catfish swims forward and latches onto the noodler's hand, and can then be dragged out of the hole, albeit with risk of injury to the noodler.

• Pearl divers - traditionally harvested oysters by free-diving to depths of thirty metres. Today, free-diving recreational fishers catch lobster and abalone by hand.

• Trout binning - is another method of taking trout. Rocks in a rocky stream are struck with a sledgehammer. The force of the blow stuns the fish.

• Trout tickling - In the British Isles, the practice of catching trout by hand is known as trout tickling; it is an art mentioned several times in the plays of Shakespeare.