Many techniques are employed to catch fish in inland waters, some appropriate to lakes alone, some to rivers only, and some to both. Of the many methods employed worldwide, only a few are economical for large-scale operation. Commercial line fishing, which uses many hooked and baited branch lines tied to a single main line, is widely practiced. A simpler technique is handlining, in which single lines with baited hooks are tied to small sticks or trees along the shore or to special devices set along the side of a hole in ice. Handlining is used for deep fishing or for catching in rocky areas. Drifting lines with one or more hooks can also be used on lakes, though seldom in rivers. Lines may also be trolled (trailed) behind a moving boat. On some rivers in tropical and temperate areas, fish are caught by fouling with sharp-pointed hooks. The main difficulty in line fishing is to keep the lines clear and to obtain baits in needed quantity.

Passive and stationary fishing gear is so important in many lakes and rivers that some fishermen specialize entirely in trapping. Since deep and rocky shores, however, do not favour the use of traps, these devices cannot be used in all areas. Fish seeking shelter may be caught in simple brushwood devices when the brushwood is lifted quickly. More important are traps, such as wooden baskets made of wickerwork or of split bamboo, with retarding devices such as funnels or valves at the entrance. Wooden baskets, generally used in rivers with strong currents, can be set according to the longline system in which the baskets are tied with branch lines on a main line lying across the bottom of the river. Such baskets are usually baited, with the bait sometimes held in small bags or boxes. Today, in river fisheries as in coastal sea fisheries, traps, especially those used for eels, are made of plastic.

A more modern type of trap is the bag-shaped fyke net, held open by hoops; linked together in long chains, these are used to catch eels in rivers. When equipped with wings and leaders, fyke nets are employed in lakes where there are sheltered places with abundant plant life. Hundreds of such nets can be combined into systems where it is not economical to build large traps.

Another fishing method important in freshwater fisheries employs small scoop nets or large net bags (stownets). Such gear is known on many European and Asian rivers. The net bag is fixed to the river bottom to catch migrating or drifting fish. Some human control may be necessary; sometimes a watchman lives on a vessel or raft next to the stownet or on a special platform. Though stownets are especially popular in European rivers for eel fishing, their importance is lessening owing to increased boat traffic and to pollution. Moreover, the gear can be too large to be moved easily. In Indonesia stownets up to 100 metres long and up to 40 metres across the mouth are used. Small scoop nets can be operated by hand and pushed or towed over the bottoms in shallow waters. Sometimes this is done by fishnetting parties, in which all the men of a village form a line across the river, with a scoop net in each hand. Sometimes the fisherman stands on a platform built on the side of the stream and simply scoops up fish as they pass; this is done by some African fishermen in Malaŵi and was done by American Indians on the Columbia River in Oregon.

One of the most common fishing methods in freshwater lakes and rivers is seining, which is done in temperate zones especially in autumn and winter when fish are concentrated in deeper parts of the lakes. Because part of the seine must be dragged over the lake bottom while it surrounds the fish, seining is practicable only where the lake bottom is smooth and where favourable areas (i.e., with fish concentrated near the bottom) are known. In some lakes such areas have been known for a long time and may be named and marked on fishing maps. Seine nets in lake fisheries can be very large, with wings of 1,000 metres each. Since traditional seining required considerable labour, mechanization became desirable. A modern mechanized seine-net fishery requires only a small labour force. In northern countries seine nets are used under ice. For this purpose a number of ice holes are needed for guiding the towing warps with the net on the underside of the ice sheet. Here also manpower is saved by motorized towing and coiling lines and by drilling the holes in the ice with power drills. Some success has been achieved in increasing the efficiency of seine nets by electric light. Fish trying to evade the net can be caught by stunning, or eels lying in the mud during the cold season (generally a time when eel fishing is poor) can be attracted out of the mud by an electrical current. The disadvantage of all seine nets is that they are not selective; many undersized fish that should be preserved cannot escape.

On larger lakes, sea-fishing methods such as trawling and purse seining are used. Two or more fishing boats are usually required to set a purse seine net, which can then be hauled in manually by people on the shore. Lift nets are often used in fresh water, not only to catch bait fish for line fishing but also to catch crayfish or other freshwater crabs. There are small hand-operated lift nets tightened by frames and larger ones lifted from a gallows or with one or two vessels. Unframed blanket nets are used in rivers in Italy, each corner held by a gallows placed on the banks. Cover pots and cast nets also have some importance in commercial freshwater fisheries. Cover pots are especially used in rice fields or shallow waters with rich vegetation. Cast nets are used more in clear waters in lakes and in rivers; considerable skill is required to cast these. In Russia shooting mechanisms are employed to cast larger nets. Much more important in freshwater fisheries, however, are gill nets. The mesh size of the net can be used to regulate the size of the fish caught; thus smaller, undesired species escape. Lake fishermen use mostly stationary gill nets, anchored near the bottom or floating. River fishermen use gill nets that drift with the current, with one side tied to the boat and the other to a drifting buoy. With entangling two-walled nets and trammel nets, yield can be increased by frightening the fish into the netting; this is accomplished by beating the water or throwing stones.