Learn to fish, and understand why it works

Start with the fish

275 species, each with what it is, where it lives, how it is caught, what it can be confused with, and how to handle it. Every photograph here has been checked against the record’s own identification features before being published.

• European sea bassA fast, predatory inshore fish that hunts in broken water and surf, and one of the most closely managed recreational species in European seas.

  Julien Renoult — CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

• Northern pikeThe dominant freshwater ambush predator of the northern hemisphere: long, cryptic, and built for one violent acceleration rather than pursuit.

  Karelj, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

• Brown troutA single, extraordinarily plastic species that appears as a tiny hill-stream fish, a deep-bodied loch trout and a silver sea-run migrant — all the same animal.

  Robermix, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

• Atlantic codA large, heavily-built demersal predator of the North Atlantic, and the species whose commercial history is the standard example of stock collapse.

  The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

• Common carpA large, long-lived, highly adaptable cyprinid whose capacity to learn has shaped more angling technique than any other freshwater fish.

  Sven Riewe, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

• Atlantic mackerelA fast, schooling, obligate-swimming pelagic fish that arrives inshore in summer in enormous numbers, and the species most sea anglers catch first.

  Hans Hillewaert — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

• European perchA small, shoaling, spiny-finned predator that is both the most accessible predator to catch and the one most anglers first learn on.

  Karelj, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

• Atlantic salmonAn anadromous salmonid that migrates from its natal river to the North Atlantic and returns to spawn — and a species in serious, well-documented decline.

  Knepp, Timothy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

• Ballan wrasseA long-lived rocky-ground resident that begins life female and may change sex — and the species that turned rock marks into a lure fishery.

  Diego Delso — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

• ZanderA shoaling freshwater predator built for hunting in low light and coloured water, and the fish that made a virtue of the conditions pike find difficult.

  eLNuko — Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

• BonefishA silver bottom-feeder of tropical shallows, hunted on sight in knee-deep water, that runs further than anything of its size.

  Brian Gratwicke — CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

• Gilthead breamThe Mediterranean's most prized sea bream, marked by a golden band between the eyes, with a jaw powerful enough to crush shellfish and a range now expanding northward.

  jujurenoult — CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Identify a fish you have caught · Tell two similar species apart · What each species eats

Where people fish

Destination guides for coasts, countries and river systems around the world, and 552 publicly documented places underneath them — what the ground is, what swims there, what the hazards are and who holds the current rules. Being listed is never permission to fish: access, seasons and licences vary and change, and every page says who to ask.

• The Cornish and Devon coasts

  Britain's south-west peninsula has two coasts with different weather, the warmest sea in the country, deep water against rock, and full Atlantic swell — which together produce the widest shore species list in Britain and its most serious rock-fishing hazard.

• The Atlantic coast of Ireland

  Full Atlantic exposure with warm water arriving on it — a cold-latitude coast holding fish that have no business being that far north, in front of some of the biggest swell in Europe.

• Norway and the Nordic coast

  Deep cold water within reach of the shore, a public right to fish the sea, and a fishing culture built on food rather than on sport.

• Canary Islands

  Young volcanic islands rising from deep Atlantic water with almost no continental shelf, where deep water is reachable from the rocks and there are no rivers at all.

• Mediterranean

  A nearly enclosed, low-tide, historically overfished sea with the oldest continuous fishing culture in the world and the strongest spearfishing tradition in Europe.

• Florida

  A peninsula between two seas with more distinct fisheries than most countries: flats, reef, offshore, backcountry, spring-fed rivers and a bass fishery, all within a day of each other.

• Scottish sea lochs

  Glacial fjords with a shallow sill across the mouth. The sill is the whole point: it makes the deep water behind it a partly separate sea with its own temperature, its own oxygen and its own fish.

• Portugal

  A long Atlantic coast with almost no shelter, fed by the same upwelling that makes Galicia productive, and a country whose fishing culture is organised around octopus and salt cod to a degree no other European nation approaches.

Browse every fishing place by part of the world · Find places near a town

Never fished before?

There is a route through this from “I want to fish” to knowing what to take and what to check before you go — including the part most sites skip, which is establishing that you are allowed to fish where you intend to.

• Which kind of fishing?

  Sea or fresh, shore or boat, bait or lure — what actually differs, and which is the easiest to start with and why.

• What you actually need

  A short list. Most of what is sold to beginners solves a problem they do not have yet.

• Your first hour

  Arrive, check, look at the water, set up once, fish close before you fish far — and what to do when nothing happens.

• When you catch one

  Wet hands, support the weight, get the hook out with a tool — and decide before you cast whether it is going back.

Rod fishing

The main practical area, and where most of the depth is. Coarse, carp, predator, lure, game, sea and match fishing — different traditions, one line.

• Carp fishing

  A specialist branch of coarse fishing that has driven more tackle and bait innovation than any other, built around a single learning species.

• Coarse fishing

  The British and Irish tradition of freshwater angling for species other than salmon and trout — and the most accessible way into fishing there is.

• Fly fishing

  Casting a nearly weightless artificial using the weight of the line itself — a solution to a specific problem that became a tradition of its own.

• Lure fishing

  Fishing with artificial baits worked by the angler, across fresh and salt water — the most active and most mobile way of fishing there is.

• Match fishing

  Competitive coarse angling against a clock and a drawn peg, and the branch of the sport where technique has been refined hardest.

• Predator fishing

  Freshwater angling for pike, perch, zander and other fish-eating species, using lures, deadbaits and livebaits rather than groundbait and small hooks.

• Sea fishing

  Rod-and-line angling in salt water, from shore or boat — the branch of fishing with the widest species range and the highest baseline risk.

Spearfishing

Its own section rather than a subsection of anything else. The most selective way of taking a fish, and the one where the limiting factor is a human breath-hold — which is why every page there opens with the same safety block, and why it says training first and buddy second.

• Blue-water spearfishing

  Hunting pelagic fish in open water with no bottom in sight — the most committing form of the sport, and the one with the least margin for error.

• Freediving for spearfishing

  The breath-hold discipline underneath spearfishing — the part that has to be learnt properly, and the part that decides whether the rest is safe.

• Spearfishing

  Hunting fish underwater on a single breath, using a speargun or pole spear — the most selective way of taking a fish, and the most demanding of the person doing it.

Skills, kit and the water

The cross-cutting subjects — the ones that apply whichever kind of fishing you are doing.

• Methods

  How fishing is done, what each method is for, and the specific mistakes that decide whether it works.

• Tackle

  What the numbers on your rod, reel and line actually mean, and how each thing fails.

• Bait

  Find, obtain, keep, prepare, use, dispose. The whole lifecycle, including the end everybody else omits.

• Lures

  Lure families and the physics behind them — design principles, not products.

• Knots

  Written steps as the instruction, with diagrams that say plainly how far they have been checked.

• Rigs

  What goes where between the main line and the hook, and what the assembly does once it is wet.

• Habitats

  Estuary, surf, chalk stream, reef, kelp — what each kind of water is like and what it holds.

• Learn

  Why things work: fish senses, line strength, water temperature, and how to read water.

Work something out

Small tools built on the same catalogue, for the questions that have an answer rather than an article.

• Which knot?

  Filter by what you are joining and what it is made of, and get the knots that hold in it.

• Which rig?

  By quarry, water and method — with what each arrangement is actually for.

• Places near a town

  Ordered by distance, filtered by quarry and water. Your position never leaves your browser.

• Who do I ask?

  The bodies that hold licensing, closures and permission, by jurisdiction.

Fishing in the round

• Safety

  Immersion, wading, tides, hooks, handling and breath-hold — what actually goes wrong and what reduces it.

• Rules & access

  How licensing, permission, close seasons and size limits work as concepts. Never what the current rule is.

• Environment

  What fishing costs, with the evidence and the uncertainty — anglers included.

• History & culture

  Where hooks, rods, reels and the written tradition came from, and what fishing has meant to communities.

Other fishing — commercial, traditional and subsistence methods, covered for intelligence and context rather than as instruction, because most of the world’s fish are caught by methods no recreational angler will ever use.