To most people, even talking about the concept of fishing conjures the iconic image of a man casting a line into the water. So it may surprise modern anglers to learn that the fishing profession predates the invention of the fishing rod by well over eight thousand years.
When Were Fishing Rods Made?
Early humans in the Paleolithic period did indeed catch fish for their dinners, but they did so using their bare hands. Any rough traps or snares they might have tried to craft have not survived the long passage of millennia to be discovered by today’s archeologists.
While the exact moment in history someone first created the fishing rod has sadly been lost to time, the earliest known record of what we would recognize as a fishing rod dates back to approximately 2000 BCE, via stone inscriptions from ancient Egypt.
There’s also evidence of roughly contemporary use of fishing rods in ancient China and slightly later but more detailed records from Greece and Rome. Given the lack of known trade routes between the two cultures during that time, this is likely a case of simultaneous invention – two or more creative minds independently coming up with the same clever idea.
As for who made the first rod, that reminds a mystery.
What Were Fishing Rods Made From?
Even the best fishing rods of that era were still thoroughly crude compared to the carefully engineered tools that anglers use today, and the entire fishing rod would likely be no more than six feet in length from end to end.
They consisted primarily of a single water reed or a rod of flexible wood, such as a switch of hazel or a stalk of bamboo, with one or more fishing lines tied to one end. Typically, spun fibers of linen or flax were used to make this type of fishing line. However, horsehair would also be used in regions where the necessary plants were unavailable.
Initially, the fishing lines were attached to what was known as a gorge – a small piece of bone, rock, or hardened wood, sharpened to a point on either end. The end of the fishing line not attached to the pole was tied around the middle of the gorge, which was then cast into the water in the hopes that a fish might bite.
The Evolution of Fishing Rods
As the art of fishing progressed, the fish hook slowly developed into the more efficient, sharply-curved shape that anglers still use today. People typically carved the earlier hooks from bone, stone, or shell, but these were rapidly replaced by metal hooks made from copper or bronze as the practice of metalworking grew more well-known.
Due to the pointed shape of these newer hooks, they were initially referred to as “angle hooks” or simply “angles.” This would eventually become the origin of the word “angler,” used to describe those who practiced the art of fishing.
Though it’s difficult to track the incremental progress that would eventually lead to the improvements found on later fishing rods, we know that these ancient anglers were gradually working to develop and refine their most useful tools.
Newer rods began to have rings attached at evenly-spaced intervals along the side of the pole, which the fishing line could then be fed through, thus allowing the line to be anchored much more securely than it was when it was attached to the fishing rod at only a single point.
By the year 1496, we can see the first surviving records of much longer and sturdier rods, as well as rods that came in multiple sections and could be disassembled for storage, found in a work known as The Treatyse of Fishing with an Angle. The text describes a fishing rod that consisted of two sections and measured a total of fourteen feet long, well over twice the length of the earliest known rods of the ancient world.
Though the fishing rod had undoubtedly come a long way since the first days of angling, it was by no means done evolving. By the time we reached the early 1600s, anglers were regularly using jointed fishing rods as long as eighteen feet. These rods were made of multiple different types of wood, often using woods like ash or willow for the butt of the fishing rod, while the tops would be made from hickory, yew, or the traditional hazel.
Different Rods From Different Cultures
Amazingly, despite being one of the most significant advancements in the development of the fishing rod, the fishing reel seems to have been unknown to the majority of the western world until approximately 1650 CE, when it began to surface in England.
This late start is extraordinary when we consider that illustrations from as far back as the Southern Song Dynasty of imperial China, such as a painting by the artist Ma Yuan dated to roughly 1195 CE, clearly show fishing rods with reels attached to them. Written descriptions of fishing reels appear even earlier in the Chinese historical record, in a text from the 4th century CE known as the Liexian Zhuan, or Lives of Famous Immortals.
While it should be a surprise to no one that China made such great advances in the design of their fishing tackle, being one of the contenders for the earliest invention of the fishing rod itself, it’s odd that other cultures took so long to discover the concept, despite having independently developed their earlier versions of fishing rods in similar periods and along almost identical lines.
Despite their late start, however, the English developed a tremendous cultural interest in fly fishing sometime after the conclusion of the English Civil War, and this focus on angling as a sport and method of relaxation continued well into the 18th century, even as fly fishing and bait fishing slowly began to drift apart in their practices and preferred rod designs.
The primary difference between the two was rod length, with bait fishing encouraging the use of rods anywhere from 12 feet to 20 feet long, while fly fishing often used rods that measured a mere 10 feet long at most.
Once the Industrial Revolution began in earnest, fishing rods became one of many tools now easily mass-produced for eager customers to purchase. Where anglers of the past had needed to carefully craft their rods or commission a skilled artisan, now they could choose on a whim to buy any style of rod they liked from a shop stocking dozens or hundreds – provided, of course, that they had the money to pay for it.
Of all the traditional components of a fishing rod, the manufacture of fishing lines was particularly affected by the increasing use of machinery, as textile spinning machines made producing large amounts of fly lines a trivial process.
By the end of the Second World War, the fishing rod used by modern anglers had almost entirely settled into the shape we’re familiar with today. The first fiberglass rods had been developed from the work of Robert Gayle, in conjunction with a man listed as one Mr. Mcguire.
The 1960s brought the advent of rods made of boron fiber, wrapped around a balsa wood core, only for them to be replaced in turn by the cheaper graphite fiber rods of the 1970s.
Where the design of the modern fishing rod will go in the future is, as of yet, unknown.
Happy Fishing & Tight Lines