Bowfishing
Videos
Bowfishing is a fishing technique that uses specialized archery equipment to impale and retrieve fish. A bowfisher will use a bow or crossbow to shoot fish through the water surface with a barbed arro
Modern sport bowfishing often occurs at night, shown here on a specialized boat: raised bow platform with powerful floodlights to expose and attract fish during the placid condition of night, often with several bowfishers covering different sectors.
A modern bowfisher takes aim at spawning carp in an Iowa pond.
Bowfishing boats at the 2018 US Open Championship Tournament in Oklahoma. See Scarnecchia and Schooley (2020) for more details. Modern bowfishing exploits rapidly accelerating technologies to amass the most fish possible for sport killing, with the purpose of fish being discarded afterwards.
The Filipino Negritos traditionally used bows and arrows to shoot fish in clear water for subsistence.
Spearfishing
Videos
Spearfishing is the practice of fishing using handheld, elongated sharp-pointed tools, such as spears, gigs, and harpoons. It was one of the earliest fishing techniques used by mankind, and has been d
Spearfisher Monument in Croatia
Fisherman with a spear in a wall painting from the tomb of Usheret in Thebes, 18 Dynasty, around 1430 BC
Poseidon/Neptune sculpture in Copenhagen Port
Mosaic, 4th century BC, showing a retiarius or "net fighter", with a trident and cast net, fighting a secutor.