Hemingway, Zane Grey and the Rest: When Fishing is More Than a Hobby

Hemingway: a writer who preferred his boat to his desk

In April 1934 Ernest Hemingway bought a boat and named her Pilar. He spent months at a time aboard her in the Gulf Stream off Cuba. In 1935 he made his first trip to Bimini. According to the John F. Kennedy Library, which holds his papers, he was the first there to land a bluefin tuna that sharks had not mauled on the way in. His method was simple: fight the fish fast.

When the IGFA – the association that keeps world records to this day – was founded in 1939, he was among its early officers and later became its vice-president. The sea found its way into his books as well. The Old Man and the Sea came out in 1952, and in 1954 he received the Nobel Prize in Literature. Freshwater anglers have their own Hemingway in the short story Big Two-Hearted River: a man, some trout, a river and hardly anything else.

Zane Grey: the westerns paid for the expeditions

Zane Grey (1872–1939) made his name with westerns; Riders of the Purple Sage came out in 1912. He spent the royalties on fishing. He fished in Florida, New Zealand, Australia and Tahiti, and wrote a whole series of books about it, from Tales of Fishes (1919) to Tales of Tahitian Waters (1931).

Off Tahiti in 1930 he caught a marlin weighing 1,040 pounds, or about 472 kilograms. He is credited with the first fish over a thousand pounds taken on rod and reel – and that was after sharks had bitten a chunk out of it before the weigh-in. He was not only a sea dog, though. He fell in love with the Rogue River in Oregon, built a cabin beside it and devoted a separate book to fresh water.

Ota Pavel: fish as a way home

Czech and Slovak readers have a classic of their own. In The Death of Beautiful Deer (1971) and How I Came to Know Fish (1974), the sports journalist Ota Pavel returned to the River Berounka, to his father and to the ferryman Prošek, who taught him to fish. The second book came out only after his death. They are fishing stories in which the fish come second.

Fishing as a sport: the best story does not win

The world championships in float fishing have been held since 1954. National teams field five anglers, the venue is divided into sections, and points are awarded in each according to the weight caught. The team with the lowest total wins. In September 2026, 21 countries met on the River Sorraia at Coruche in Portugal. England won, the Czech Republic took silver and Hungary bronze.

Carp anglers have the World Carp Classic. In recent years it has been fished on Lac de Madine in France, and the ranking is decided by the combined weight of a team’s three heaviest fish. In 2023 the Czech trio of Radek Bis, Karel Racák and Rostislav Masopust won with 73.6 kilograms. A year later their compatriots Tomáš Slavík and Petr Korbička succeeded them with 69.5 kilograms. A Czech team also won in 2016, when the event was fished at home on the Nové Mlýny reservoirs.

And the Slovaks? The biggest fish of the 2024 event was caught by Jakub Vardžík. His carp weighed 30.3 kilograms.

Hall of fame: a professional and a lady with 135 records

The IGFA has a Hall of Fame, too. Hemingway and Zane Grey are both in it. In 2024 they were joined by the American Kevin VanDam, a professional bass angler. He has four Bassmaster Classic titles, seven Angler of the Year titles and a record 25 wins in the B.A.S.S. series.

A year later Gene DuVal was inducted posthumously. She was the first woman to pass a hundred IGFA world records and stopped only at 135. Her daughter accepted the honour. To anyone who claims fishing is just for men, that one number is answer enough.