[OneVike]

I am sure that our grandparents and great great grandparents caught a lot of "world record"" fish of all kinds. Especially considering the Indians were too stupid to catch fish with anything but their hands or damning up the creaks.

[sinanju]

I believe the Injuns and our own neolithic ancestors relied on nets and fish traps (weirs). People who fish for subsistence rarely bother with fishing rods.

[sinanju]

I recall flipping through a reprinted memoir by a man who grew up on the Big Muddy who was born in the Lewis and Clark era. He bemoaned the decline in river wildlife over his lifetime. And he was writing in the eighteen-eighties!

[calex59]

My great-grandfather caught a lot of catfish in Ark. using dynamite or black powder sticks out of a rowboat. Stories handed down through the family. I imagine he floated some mighty big ones up back in the 1880s.

[Osage Orange]

Plenty of FACTUAL evidence that American Indians fished with hooks....

Another thing...I am part Indian and I know how to spell CREEK.

fwiw-