Today, fishing, often called sport fishing to distinguish it from commercial fishing, is, despite the g.... reel line

Today, fishing, often called sport fishing to distinguish it from commercial fishing, is, despite the growth of towns and the increase of pollution in many sources, one of man's principal relaxations and in is many countries the most popular participant sport. When a fish swallowed the gorge, a pull on the line wedged it across the gullet of the fish, which could then be pulled in. The practice of attaching the line in turn to a rod, at first probably a stick or tree branch, made it possible to fish from the bank or shore and even to reach over vegetation bordering the water. About this time some unknown angler attached a wire loop or ring at the tip end of the rod, which allowed a running line, useful for both casting and playing a hooked fish. By 1770 a rod with guides for the line along its length and a reel was in common use. The first true reel was a geared multiplying reel attached under the rod, in which one turn of the handle moved the spool through several revolutio! ns. Never popular in Great Britain, such reels became the prototype of the bait-casting reel as devised by two Kentucky watchmakers in the early 1800s. It was a wide-drum, ungeared, very free-running reel, ideal for allowing line and bait or lure to float downstream with the current and suitable for casting lures for predatory fish in various kinds of sea fishing. The average angler could cast three times farther with these lines, and such methods as dry-fly and wet-fly fishing became possible. During casting, the reel was turned 90, bringing it in line with rod guides, so that the line slipped easily off the end of the spool. The reel was used mainly for casting heavy lures for salmon fishing, but it influenced the reel invented by the English textile magnate Holden Illingworth, which the British called a fixed-spool reel and the Americans a spinning reel. In this kind of reel, the spool permanently faces up the rod and the line peels off in the cast as with the Malloch re! el.