Tackle
Equipment explained as principles rather than products: what each class of tackle does, what the numbers printed on it actually mean, how to choose, and how it fails.
Bands and wishbones
The rubber that stores the energy and the small loop that transfers it — a consumable and a component, both of which fail suddenly and under full load.Bite alarms and indicators
Equipment that reports what the line is doing when nobody is holding the rod — and, because of that, the equipment with the strongest welfare argument attached to it in bank fishing.Braided line
Many fine fibres braided together: almost no stretch, very high strength for its diameter, and no forgiveness at all.Catch handling and transport
What happens to a fish after the shot — a welfare question, a food-quality question, and, if the fish is towed, a safety question.Centrepin reels
A drum on a spindle with no gearing and usually no drag, which is a disadvantage everywhere except in the one situation it was designed for — and in that situation nothing else comes close.Dive floats and float lines
The marked surface float and its line — the piece of spearfishing equipment most often thought of as a convenience, and actually the primary means of not being run over.Fixed spool reels
The reel where the spool stays still and the line is wound around it by a rotating arm — the most widely used design, and the easiest to learn.Floats
A buoyant indicator that suspends a bait at a chosen depth and shows a take — the oldest bite indicator, and still the most informative.Fluorocarbon leaders
A dense, abrasion-resistant line whose refractive index is close to water's — used as a leader rather than as a main line.Fly leaders and tippet
The tapered link between a thick fly line and an almost weightless fly — and the component that decides whether a cast turns over or lands in a heap.Fly lines
The casting weight, moved out of the lure and into the line — and the component that decides both how a fly is delivered and how deep it fishes.Fly reels
Mostly a line store, and occasionally the only thing between you and a fish that has taken all of it.Fly rods
A rod designed to load against the weight of a line rather than a lure, and rated by the line class it is built for.Hooks
The only part of the tackle that touches the fish — and the part where size numbering confuses more beginners than anything else in angling.Keepnets, sacks and retaining fish
Holding a live fish for later is one of the few things an angler does that has a welfare cost with no benefit to the fish — which is why it is regulated more often than almost any other piece of equipment.Landing and unhooking equipment
The equipment that decides whether a released fish survives — and the category most often treated as optional.Monofilament line
A single extruded nylon strand with useful stretch, moderate visibility and a limited life — still the default line for most bait fishing.Multiplier and baitcasting reels
A reel that spins its spool to give line rather than peeling it off a stationary one — which is why it pulls harder, casts differently, and punishes a thumb that stops paying attention.Polarised glasses and eye protection
The cheapest piece of equipment that does two important jobs at once: it lets you see into water you otherwise cannot, and it is the only thing between a hook and an eye.Pole spears and Hawaiian slings
The simplest spearfishing tools: a shaft powered by a rubber loop held under tension by the hand, or launched free from a handheld track.Poles and whips
A rod with no reel and no cast, fished by pushing sections out over the water — which buys a precision nothing else approaches and imposes a set of constraints nothing else has.Rods
A lever that stores and releases energy — the specification that matters is not length but what weight it is designed to load against.Shafts and tips
The part that reaches the fish, and the part that decides whether it stays on — a slip tip and a fixed flopper solve completely different problems.Shooting line and breakaway rigging
How the fish is connected to something that is not the diver — and the single most important decision in blue-water rigging.Sinkers and leads
The weight that puts a bait where the fish are and holds it there — chosen for the current rather than the depth, and changed through a tide rather than once.Speargun power systems
Band-powered and pneumatic guns store energy in completely different ways, and the difference decides maintenance, noise, recoil and where each one suits.Speargun reels
A drum of line on the gun that lets a fish run instead of towing the diver — the middle option between a fixed line and a full breakaway rig.Spearguns
Elastic- or air-powered devices that propel a shaft over a short distance underwater — and a piece of equipment that must be treated as loaded at all times.Stripping baskets and line management
A container worn at the waist that holds retrieved fly line clear of the water, the weed and your feet — the one piece of fly equipment that exists purely because of where a coastal angler is standing.Suits, masks, fins and cutting tools
The kit that keeps a diver warm, able to see, able to move — and able to cut themselves free.Surface marking and signalling
How a diver is seen by boats and found by their own — the equipment whose entire function is to work on the worst day rather than the average one.Wading boot soles
The one purchase where the option that grips best on wet rock is also the one most likely to move an invasive organism into the next river — which is why some places have banned it.Weighting and quick release
Enough lead to descend comfortably and not one gram more — and a buckle that comes off with one hand, first time, in the dark.Weights and leads
Mass added to the terminal tackle to cast it, sink it and hold it — and the tackle component with the most direct environmental history.Wire traces
A short length of wire between line and hooks, and the single most important piece of terminal tackle in predator fishing — for the fish's sake, not the angler's.
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