Fishing nets are meshes usually formed by knotting a relatively thin thread. About 180 AD the Greek author Oppian wrote the Halieutica, a didactic poem about fishing. He described various means of fishing including the use of nets cast from boats, scoop nets held open by a hoop, and various traps "which work while their masters sleep".

Netting is the principal method of commercial fishing, though longlining, trolling, dredging and traps are also used.

A fisherman casting a net in Kerala, India

Oil painting of gillnetting, The salmon fisher by Eilif Peterssen

Fishing with nets in Cà Mau Province, Vietnam

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• Artisanal techniques
  
• Chinese fishing nets - are shore operated lift nets.  Huge mechanical contrivances hold out horizontal nets with diameters of twenty metres or more. The nets are dipped into the water and raised again, but otherwise cannot be moved.

• Lampuki nets - are an example of a traditional artisanal use of nets. 
• Since Roman times, Maltese fishers have cut the larger, lower fronds from palm treeswhich they then weave into large flat rafts. The rafts are pulled out to sea by a luzzu, a small traditional fishing boat. In the middle of the day, lampuki fish (the Maltese name for mahi-mahi) school underneath the rafts, seeking the shade, and are caught by the fishers using large mesh nets.
  

• Cast nets - are round nets with small weights distributed around the edge. They are also called throw nets. The net is caste or thrown by hand in such a manner that it spreads out on the water and sinks. Fish are caught as the net is hauled back in. This simple device has been in use, with various modifications, for thousands of years.

• Drift nets - are nets which are not anchored. They are usually gillnets, and are commonly used in the coastal waters of many countries. Their use on the high seasis prohibited, but still occurs.
• Ghost nets - are nets that have been lost at sea. They can be a menace to marine life for many years.
• Gillnets - catch fish which try to pass through by snagging on the gill covers. Trapped, the fish can neither advance through the net nor retreat.

• Hand nets - are small nets held open by a hoop. They have been used since antiquity. They are also called scoop nets, and are used for scooping up fish near the surface of the water. They may or may not have a handle–if they have a long handle they are called dip nets. When used by anglers to help land fish they are called landing nets. Because hand netting is not destructive to fish, hand nets are used for tag and release, or capturing aquarium fish.

• Seine nets - are large fishing nets that can be arranged in different ways. In purse seining fishing the net hangs vertically in the water by attaching weights along the bottom edge and floats along the top. Danish seining is a method which has some similarities with trawling. A simple and commonly used fishing technique is beach seining, where the seine net is operated from the shore.

• Surrounding nets -
• Tangle nets - also known as tooth nets, are similar to gillnets except they have a smaller mesh size designed to catch fish by the teeth or upper jaw bone instead of by the gills. 

• Trawl nets - are large nets, conical in shape, designed to be towed in the sea or along the sea bottom. The trawl is pulled through the water by one or more boats, called trawlers. The activity of pulling the trawl through the water is called trawling.