Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping.

The term fishing may be applied to catching other aquatic animals such as molluscs, cephalopods, crustaceans, and echinoderms. The term is not normally applied to catching farmed fish, or to aquatic mammals, such as whales, where the term whaling is more appropriate.

According to FAO statistics, the total number of commercial fishermen and fish farmers is estimated to be 38 million. Fisheries and aquaculture provide direct and indirect employment to over 500 million people. In 2005, the worldwide per capita consumption of fish captured from wild fisheries was 14.4 kilograms, with an additional 7.4 kilograms harvested from fish farms. In addition to providing food, modern fishing is also a recreational pastime.

Noun

fish (collectively (UK) fish or (US) and when referring to two or more kinds fishes or informally fishies)

1. (countable) A cold-blooded vertebrate animal that lives in water, moving with the help of fins and breathing with gills.

   Salmon is a fish.

   God created all the fishes of the world.

2. (collectively) Plural form of fish.

   We have many fish in our aquarium.

3. (possibly archaic) Any animal that lives exclusively in water.
   • 1774, Oliver Goldsmith, History of the Earth and Animated Nature, Volume IV:

     The whale, the limpet, the tortoise and the oyster… as men have been willing to give them all the name of fishes, it is wisest for us to conform.

4. (uncountable) The flesh of the fish used as food.

   The seafood pasta had lots of fish but not enough pasta.

5. (countable) A period of time spent fishing.

   The fish at the lake didn't prove successful.

6. (countable) An instance of seeking something.

   Merely two fishes for information told the whole story.

7. (uncountable) A card game in which the object is to obtain pairs of cards.
8. (uncountable, derogatory, slang) A woman.
9. (slang) An easy victim for swindling.
10. (nautical) A makeshift overlapping longitudinal brace used to temporarily repair or extend a spar or mast of a ship.
11. (nautical) Torpedo
    • 1977, Richard O'Kane, Clear the Bridge: The War Patrols of the U.S.S. Tang, Ballantine Books (2003), page 344:

      The second and third fish went to the middle of her long superstructure and under her forward deck.

12. (poker slang) A bad poker player.

• (card game): go fish
• (bad poker player): donkey, donk

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