Fishing in SE Asia takes on many forms. The easiest is simply sitting in a boat with a line wrapped around your fingers with a hook at the end. You sit in the boat and slowly jerk the line up and let it fall then up again and down again. Over and over and over till something comes along that finds it interesting.
Next--sit in a boat with a fishing rod. Do just about the same thing. Jerk the end of the rod up and down. Something will come along.
Third--sit in a boat and shove a net overboard. Attach one end to a float-sometimes with an anchor line that goes to the bottom so it doesn't float away-- and let it slowly feed off the bow of your boat as you back down. Once all the net is out, sit there for a while and wait for the fish to get in the net. Another version of this is to put out a float with the net attached and back down. Once it's all out, attach another float to the other end and let it go. It will drift in the current and with luck, it will catch some fish. Heck, it might catch another boat and wrap itself around the anchor chain or the propeller causing all kinds of fun for the owner of the boat. We see these floating nets all along the coast line. We try and stay as far away from them as we can.
Then there are the fishing boats that let their nets out at the bow and go in circles, pounding the water with a stick as they go to drive the fish toward the net. Once it's all out, slowly pull the net back in.
Then there are the boats that roll out all their nets and slowly drag then through the sea, catching what ever might happen into the net. They will go for miles before reeling the net back in and pulling out what they might catch.
The worst are what we refer to as "Hoovers". These are two boats that motor along with a net between them stretching back as much as a mile scooping up what ever comes along. These nets are huge and they grab everything in their way, even coral if it goes to low in the water. After many miles, it's rolled in and the fish are pulled from the nets.
Another boat uses nets suspended on arms from the sides of their boat, again dragged through the water. These nets again can stretch move than a mile behind a boat.
Longliners use long fishing lines off the side of their boats with hooks on the lines catching what ever comes along. Again, these lines can go for miles--hence the name "Longliners".
In Thailand, many of the fishermen use traps left on the bottom with floats on the surface. Their targets are lobsters and prawns.
With the fishermen out here, anything is fair game.