Fly fishing in the context of "Hand net"

A fishing rod or fishing pole is a long, thin rod used by anglers to catch fish by manipulating a line ending in a hook (formerly known as an angle, hence the term "angling"). At its most basic form, a fishing rod is a straight rigid stick/pole with a line fastened to one end (as seen in traditional bamboo rod fishing such as Tenkara fishing); however, modern rods are usually more elastic and generally have the line stored in a reel mounted at the rod handle, which is hand-cranked and controls the line retrieval, as well as numerous line-restricting rings (also known as line guides) that distribute bending stress along the rod and help dampening down/prevent line whipping and entanglement. To better entice fish, baits or lures are dressed onto the hook attached to the line, and a bite indicator (e.g. a float) is typically used, some of which (e.g. quiver tip) might be incorporated as part of the rod itself.

Fishing rods act as an extended lever and allow the angler to amplify line movements while luring and pulling the fish. It also enhances casting distance by increasing the launch speed of the terminal tackles (the hook, bait/lure, and other accompanying attachments such as float and sinker/feeder), as a longer swing radius (compared to that of a human arm) corresponds to greater arc speed at the tip under the same angular velocity. The length of fishing rods usually vary between 0.6 m (2 ft) and 4.6 m (15 ft) depending on the style of angling, while the Guinness World Record is 22.45 m (73 ft 7.9 in).

A fish hook or fishhook, formerly also called an angle (from Old English angol and Proto-Germanic *angulaz), is a hook used to catch fish either by piercing and embedding onto the inside of the fish mouth (angling) or, more rarely, by impaling and snagging the external fish body. Fish hooks are normally attached to a line, which tethers the target fish to the angler for retrieval, and are typically dressed with some form of bait or lure that entices the fish to swallow the hook out of its own natural instinct to forage or hunt.

Fish hooks have been employed for millennia by fishermen to catch freshwater and saltwater fish. There is an enormous variety of fish hooks in the world of fishing. Sizes, designs, shapes, and materials are all variable depending on the intended purpose of the hook. Fish hooks are manufactured for a range of purposes from general fishing to extremely limited and specialized applications. Fish hooks are designed to hold various types of artificial, processed, dead or live baits (bait fishing); to act as the foundation for artificial representations of invertebrate prey (e.g. fly fishing); or to be attached to or integrated into other devices that mimic prey (lure fishing). In 2005, the fish hook was chosen by Forbes as one of the Top 20 tools in human history.

A fishing sinker, plummet, or knoch is a weight used in conjunction with a fishing lure or hook to increase its rate of sink, anchoring ability, and/or casting distance. Fishing sinkers may be as small as 1 gram (0.035 oz) for applications in shallow water, and even smaller for fly fishing applications, or as large as several pounds (>1 kg) or considerably more for deep sea fishing. They are formed into many different shapes for diverse fishing applications. Environmental concerns surround the usage of lead and other materials in fishing sinkers.

An artificial fly or fly lure is a type of fishing lure, usually used in the sport of fly fishing (although they may also be used in other forms of angling). In general, artificial flies are an imitation of aquatic insects that are natural food of the target fish species the fly fishers try to catch. Artificial flies are constructed by fly tying, in which furs, feathers, thread or any of very many other materials are tied onto a fish hook.

Artificial flies may be constructed to represent all manner of potential preys to freshwater and saltwater fish, including aquatic and terrestrial insects, crustaceans, worms, spawn, small baitfish, reptiles, amphibians, mammals and even birds. Effective artificial fly patterns are said to be killing flies because of their ability to put fish in the creel for the fly fisher. There are thousands of artificial fly patterns, many of them with descriptive and often idiosyncratic names.

The River Itchen in Hampshire, England, rises to the south of New Alresford and flows 26 miles (42 km) to meet Southampton Water below the Itchen Bridge. The Itchen Navigation was constructed in the late 17th and early 18th centuries to enable barges to reach Winchester from Southampton Docks, but ceased to operate in the mid-19th century and is largely abandoned today.

The river is one of the world's premier chalk streams for fly fishing, amenable to dry fly or nymphing. The local chalk aquifer has excellent storage and filtration and the river has long been used for drinking water. Watercress thrives in its upper reaches.

Recreational fishermen usually fish either from a boat or from a shoreline or river bank. When fishing from a boat, or fishing vessel, most fishing techniques can be used, from nets to fish traps, but some form of angling is by far the most common. Compared to fishing from the land, fishing from a boat allows more access to different fishing grounds and different species of fish.

Tenkara fishing (Japanese: テンカラ釣り, literally: "fishing from heaven", "sky fishing", or "empty sky fishing" as ten = "sky" and kara = "empty") is a type of simple rod angling traditionally practiced in Japan. Primarily used for mountain stream trout fishing, tenkara is still a fairly rare method even among freshwater anglers in Japan, and was largely unknown outside Japan until 2009, when the company Tenkara USA, founded by Daniel Galhardo, introduced and popularized tenkara outside Japan.

Although there are similarities between tenkara and traditional Western-style fly fishing, the two techniques developed independently of each other, with tenkara being purely Japanese in origin. In addition, fly fishing uses specialized rod, reel and line and a type of ultralight fishing lure known as artificial fly, while traditional tenkara is reel-less and mostly uses real insects as bait (although modern tenkara tends to use so-called Japanese Flies).