120 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 120 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 02The old word 'angle', root of a fishing term, meant what in Old English?
Hook
Angol, hence the old name 'angle' for a fish hook.
Q 03The world's oldest known fish hooks, found in Sakitari Cave, Okinawa, are made from what?
Sea snail shells
They are dated between 22,380 and 22,770 years old.
Q 04Which magazine named the fish hook one of the top 20 tools in human history in 2005?
Forbes
Hooks have been made by humans for many thousands of years.
Q 05The earliest fishing reels are documented in paintings from which country and era?
China, Song dynasty
Detailed illustrations date from about 1195 AD.
Q 06Fishing reels first appeared in England in which decade?
1650s
It was a time of growing interest in fly fishing.
Q 07George Snyder, who made the first American bait-casting reel in 1810, worked in what trade?
Watchmaker and silversmith
His Kentucky Reel was copied by Meek, Milam and others.
Q 08Traditional fishing lines were made of which material?
Silk
Modern lines are nylon, polyethylene or fluorocarbon.
Q 09From the mid-19th century, favoured rods were built by gluing strips of which material into hexagonal blanks?
Bamboo
Split-cane rods were light, strong and superior to anything before them.
Q 10The Chinese 'wooden fish' of the Song dynasty was an early form of what?
Surface lure
It was used to catch larger fish such as yellowcheek.
Q 11What is the lightweight buoy attached to a fishing line called?
A float or bobber
Fishing with one is called float fishing.
Q 12Why did lead become the material of choice for fishing sinkers?
Low cost, easy casting and density
Environmental concerns about lead poisoning now surround its use.
Q 13What is the term for the short branch lines carrying hooks on a commercial longline?
Snoods or gangions
Hundreds or thousands of baited hooks can hang from one line.
Q 21Who added the extra chapters to the expanded 1676 edition of The Compleat Angler?
Charles Cotton
The book had earlier editions in 1655, 1661 and 1668.
Q 22Which Staffordshire-Derbyshire border river is thought to reflect Walton's own fishing?
The Dove
The book itself describes trips up the Lea Valley in Hertfordshire.
Q 23What was the author of The Compleat Angler's trade when he moved to London as a teenager?
Linen draper
He befriended the poet John Donne there.
Q 24Which fly angler promoted catch and release from 1936, saying game fish are too valuable to catch only once?
Q 14What is 'noodling'?
Catching catfish with bare hands or feet
It 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 ice saw or chisel can also be used.
Q 16Which country outlaws mechanically powered spearguns?
New Zealand
Spearfishing with barbed poles was widespread in palaeolithic times.
Q 17Trolling boats use what to spread several lines without tangling?
Outriggers
Downriggers keep baits at a set depth instead.
Q 18Which Roman writer is often credited with the first record of an artificial fly, around 200 AD?
Claudius Aelianus
He described Macedonian anglers on the Astraeus River using red wool and cock feathers.
Q 19The 1496 Treatyse on Fysshynge with an Angle appeared in which book?
The Boke of Saint Albans
It is attributed to Dame Juliana Berners.
Q 20Who wrote The Compleat Angler, first published in 1653?
Izaak Walton
He kept adding to it for a quarter of a century.
Lee Wulff
Michigan first used catch and release as a management tool in 1952.
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
His father had gone north seeking gold.
Q 27Which marine biologist is credited with founding big-game fishing in 1898?
Charles Frederick Holder
He went on to lead the Tuna Club of Avalon on Catalina Island.
Q 28The International Game Fish Association was launched in 1939 at which institution?
American Museum of Natural History
The IGFA later moved its headquarters to Dania Beach, Florida.
Q 29Which magazine handed 68 years of freshwater records to the IGFA in 1978?
Field & Stream
IGFA had kept saltwater records since 1939.
Q 30Where is the IGFA headquartered?
Dania Beach, Florida
It publishes the annual World Record Game Fishes.