Fishing Trivia
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117 free Fishing trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This fishing trivia quiz covers the whole sport, from bank-side worm dunking to blue-water big game: the species anglers chase, the record catches, the history of rods, reels, hooks and lures, the tournaments and personalities of competitive fishing, and the books, films and TV shows built around a rod and line. The easy questions are ones any weekend angler will know: what an angler's float is for, which fish Santiago fights in The Old Man and the Sea, and which state fish the walleye is. From there it gets harder: George Perry's 1932 largemouth, Cal Johnson's muskie, Alf Dean's 2,663-pound white shark, the Song-dynasty origins of the reel, the Kentucky watchmaker who built America's first baitcaster, the 22,000-year-old shell hooks of Okinawa, Dame Juliana Berners and Izaak Walton, Ray Scott and the first Bassmaster Classic, Kevin VanDam and Rick Clunn, Lauri Rapala's cork minnow, the Cod Wars, the Grand Banks moratorium and Lee Wulff's case for catch and release. If you only care about largemouth and smallmouth, our dedicated Bass Fishing quiz goes deeper on that. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries for the species, people, tackle and events named before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question.
30 of 117 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is fishing with a hook and line called?
Angling
The hook was formerly called an angle.
Q 02Which fishing line material is prized for near-invisibility underwater thanks to its refractive index?
Fluorocarbon
Fluorocarbon (PVDF) has a refractive index of about 1.42, close to water's 1.33, so fluorocarbon leaders are far less visible to fish than nylon monofilament.
Q 03The world's oldest known fish hooks, found in Sakitari Cave, Okinawa, are made from what?
Sea snail shells
Sea snail shells: the Sakitari Cave hooks, carved from shell and dated to between 22,380 and 22,770 years old, were reported in 2016 as the world's oldest known fish hooks.
Q 04Which magazine named the fish hook one of the top 20 tools in human history in 2005?
Forbes
Forbes named the fish hook one of the 20 most important tools in human history in 2005, alongside the knife, compass and scythe, noting that humans have made hooks for many thousands of years.
Q 05The earliest fishing reels are documented in paintings from which country and era?
China, Song dynasty
China, Song dynasty: the earliest known pictures of a fishing reel are Chinese, including Ma Yuan's painting Angler on a Wintry Lake of about 1195.
Q 06Fishing reels first appeared in England in which decade?
1650s
1650s: reels first appear in English angling books around 1650, when interest in fly fishing was growing; by the 1760s London tackle shops were advertising multiplying reels.
Q 07George Snyder, who made the first American bait-casting reel in 1810, worked in what trade?
Watchmaker and silversmith
Watchmaker and silversmith: George Snyder of Paris, Kentucky built the first American multiplying bait-casting reel, and his 'Kentucky reel' was copied by Meek, Milam and others.
Q 08Before nylon, braided fly lines were traditionally made of which material?
Silk
Silk: oil-dressed braided silk fly lines were standard from the 19th century until nylon and PVC-coated lines replaced them after the Second World War.
Q 09From the mid-19th century, favoured rods were built by gluing strips of which material into hexagonal blanks?
Bamboo
Bamboo: from the 1840s makers such as Samuel Phillippe glued six triangular strips of cane into hexagonal split-bamboo blanks that were lighter and stronger than any solid wood rod.
Q 10The Mitchell 300, a classic fixed-spool spinning reel launched in the late 1940s, was made where?
France
France: the Mitchell 300 was built by Carpano & Pons at Cluses in the French Alps; it stayed in production for decades and tens of millions were sold.
Q 11Which tackle item suspends the bait at a set depth and dips when a fish bites?
A float or bobber
A float or bobber holds the bait at a chosen depth and dips or slides under when a fish takes; fishing this way is called float fishing.
Q 12Why did lead become the material of choice for fishing sinkers?
Low cost, easy casting and density
Low cost, easy casting and density: lead is cheap, melts at 327 °C so it is easily cast into shapes, and its density sinks bait quickly; several jurisdictions have since restricted lead tackle over poisoning of waterfowl.
Q 13What is the term for the short branch lines carrying hooks on a commercial longline?
Q 21Who added the extra chapters to the expanded 1676 edition of The Compleat Angler?
Charles Cotton
Charles Cotton, Walton's friend and fellow angler, wrote the second part on fly fishing for the fifth edition of 1676; earlier editions had appeared in 1655, 1661 and 1668.
Q 22Which Staffordshire-Derbyshire border river is thought to reflect Walton's own fishing?
The Dove
The Dove, on the Staffordshire-Derbyshire border, is where Walton fished with Charles Cotton, whose 1676 Part II is set on the river below Cotton's Beresford Hall.
Q 23What was the author of The Compleat Angler's trade when he moved to London as a teenager?
Linen draper
Linen draper: Walton, born in Stafford in 1593, kept a linen draper's shop in Fleet Street, London, where he became a friend and parishioner of the poet John Donne.
Snoods or gangions
Snoods or gangions are the short branch lines tied or clipped to a longline's main line, each carrying a baited hook; a single longline can carry hundreds or thousands of them.
Q 14What is 'noodling'?
Catching catfish with bare hands or feet
Noodling means catching catfish with bare hands or feet, and is practised mainly in the southern United States.
Q 15Which tool does an ice angler use to cut a round hole in the ice?
An auger
An auger, a hand-cranked or powered drill with a spiral blade, bores a round hole usually 6 to 10 inches across; an ice saw or chisel (spud bar) can also be used.
Q 16What is the reserve line wound onto a fly reel beneath the fly line called?
Backing
Backing is thin braided line wound onto the fly reel under the fly line; it fills the spool and gives extra length when a strong fish runs farther than the 90-foot fly line.
Q 17Offshore sport-fishing boats hold trolling lines clear of the wake with which long poles?
Outriggers
Outriggers are long poles angled out from each side of the boat; lines clipped to them run wide of the wake so several baits troll without tangling, while downriggers hold baits at depth.
Q 18Which Roman writer is often credited with the first record of an artificial fly, around 200 AD?
Claudius Aelianus
Claudius Aelianus, in De Natura Animalium (c. 200 AD), described Macedonian anglers on the Astraeus River catching spotted fish with a hook dressed in red wool and two cock's feathers.
Q 19The 1496 Treatyse on Fysshynge with an Angle appeared in which book?
The Boke of Saint Albans
The Boke of Saint Albans: Wynkyn de Worde's 1496 second edition added the Treatyse, attributed to Dame Juliana Berners, to the 1486 collection on hawking, hunting and heraldry.
Q 20Who wrote The Compleat Angler, first published in 1653?
Izaak Walton
Izaak Walton kept adding to The Compleat Angler for a quarter of a century after its 1653 debut.
Q 24Which fly angler promoted catch and release from 1936, saying game fish are too valuable to catch only once?
Lee Wulff
Lee Wulff, the fly-fishing author and film-maker, argued from the 1930s that 'a game fish is too valuable to be caught only once', a line printed in his 1939 Handbook of Freshwater Fishing.
Q 25Which US state first introduced catch and release as a management tool, in 1952?
Michigan
The aim was to cut the cost of stocking hatchery trout.
Q 26In which Alaskan town was fly-fishing legend Lee Wulff born in 1905?
Valdez
Valdez: Lee Wulff was born there in 1905, his father having gone north in the gold rush; he later settled in the northeastern United States and became the era's best-known fly angler.
Q 27Which marine biologist is credited with founding big-game fishing in 1898?
Charles Frederick Holder
Charles Frederick Holder landed a 183-pound bluefin tuna on rod and reel off Santa Catalina Island in 1898 and founded the Tuna Club of Avalon the same year.
Q 28The International Game Fish Association was launched in 1939 at which institution?
American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History in New York hosted the IGFA's founding on 7 June 1939, with museum ichthyologist William K. Gregory as first president and Michael Lerner among the founders.
Q 29Which magazine handed 68 years of freshwater records to the IGFA in 1978?
Field & Stream
Field & Stream had kept the freshwater world records since 1910 and transferred them to the IGFA in 1978; the IGFA had tracked saltwater records since its founding in 1939.
Q 30Since 1999, the IGFA has been headquartered in which city?
Dania Beach, Florida
Dania Beach, Florida: the IGFA moved its headquarters and Fishing Hall of Fame there in 1999; it publishes the annual World Record Game Fishes book.