Fishing is the activity of hunting for fish by hooking, trapping, or gathering animals not classifiable as insects which breathe in water or pass their lives in water. By extension, the term fishing is applied to pursuing other aquatic animals such as various types of shellfish, squid, octopus, turtles, frogs, and some edible marine invertebrates.

Recreational fishing and the closely related sport fishing describe fishing for pleasure or competition. Recreational fishing has conventions, rules, licensing restrictions and laws that limit the way in which fish may be caught, The International Game Fishing Association (IGFA) makes and oversees these obligations. Typically, these prohibit the use of nets and the catching of fish with hooks not in the mouth.

The most common form of recreational fishing is done with a rod, line and hooks attached through use of a snap and swivel to any of a wide range of lures or baits. Most types of fishing tackle are made in a professional manufacturing facility and other for hobbyist enjoy making their own baits, examples would include the use of Fishing worm molds, etc. This practice is known as angling.

In angling, it is sometimes expected or required that fish all be returned to the water (catch and release). The practice, however, is viewed by some with disapproval as they consider it unethical to inflict pain on a fish for fun or sport and not for reasons of capturing food. Anglers deny this charge, pointing out that fish commonly feed on hard and spiky prey items, and as such can be expected to have tough mouths, and also that some fish will re-take a lure they have just been hooked on, a behavior that is unlikely if being hooked were painful. There is also some research that shows certain types of fish such as catfish, do not have nerves around their mouth. They most likely do not have nerves in their mouths due to the fact that they eat animals such as crawfish that can pinch.

In a real sense, the suitability of catch and release is an ethical consideration and, as such, a science-based conclusion on the issue is unavailable. Scientific studies show a wide range of survival, depending on species, environmental conditions, fish density and research design (methodology). The difficulty of doing such experiments is closely linked to the fact that negative effects of being exposed to fishing gears develop over a long time. Keeping fish trapped over a long period of time creates a lot of noise which makes it hard to single out the effect of the catch from the effect of the chosen methodology. Nevertheless, several studies have now returned very high survival rates (95%+) for species caught on fly and lures, which generally tend to hook fish in the mouth and thus aid catch and release fishing.

Obviously when you want to go fishing during your camping trip you have to consider the amount of equipment you'll be able to walk around. You can either limit yourself to a rod and small items to aid you in the fishing process, or research prior to undertaking your trip and set up camp near to an area that is able to supply you with fishing tackle on hire. This way you won't have to worry about lugging the aequipment around with you.