Long Line Fishing

By Hannah

I thought I knew something about fishing. I've caught a lot of fish and I've seen fishing boats, fishing derby's and even ice fishing, but today I tried a whole new kind of fishing. It was called Long Line fishing. Long line fishing is a type of fishing using a very long line that can go out more than 1 kilometer from the beach. About 25 short fishing lines with hooks and bait are attached onto the long line. Then it is sent out to sea.

There are two different kinds of long line fishing. The old fashioned technique involves going out with a row boat about one kilometer to drop the line. The fisherman returns to the land, waits about an hour then pulls the line back in toward shore using a large spool.

The modern technique is when the long line is sent out with a torpedo. A torpedo has a little battery in it and a small propeller. It is sent out for about an hour and it travels for 1 km and sits there with a little red flag on it so you can see it.

When you are long line fishing you can have up to 25 hooks. We were invited to long line fish with a couple at our campground. They were using the modern technique and aiming for snapper, gurnard, and sand sharks. The first day they caught two sand sharks and a gurnard. We let the sharks go because they said that they didn't know how to skin them properly and they had never tried it. (Eric and my dad are shown here releasing the sharks) They skinned the gurnard (the orange fish in photo) and as a surprise gave it to us to eat. We all had some including `Mary the picky'. It was delicious!

Long line fishing is definitely something I would do again.