salmon fishing

Greetings,

Before I make a claim in an essay I'm writing, I'd like to know that other native speakers share my sense that, although we can very naturally speak of salmon fishing, it is unnatural to speak of ? fishing salmon. We would use fishing for salmon instead:

1a) Salmon fishing is illegal here.
1b) ? Fishing salmon is illegal here.
1c) Fishing for salmon is illegal here.

This forms a contrast with hunting deer, where all three ways work:

2a) Deer hunting is illegal here.
2b) Hunting deer is illegal here.
2c) Hunting for deer is illegal here.

Of course, perhaps (2c) conveys a different meaning: _searching_ for deer, even without the intent to kill them. And maybe (1b) works with the meaning "lifting salmon" -- cf. "They fished a dead guy out of the river here yesterday."

My hypothesis is that, unlike hunt, the verb fish doesn't work (or, doesn't work well) with a direct object if the meaning is to involve the sport or activity of fishing. The reason salmon fishing works is that fishing is a noun, not a verb, in that structure; salmon fishing is a compound noun.

Thank you.

Yep. Sense fully shared.

You could easily push me beyond saying it's unnatural to saying it's straight ungrammatical. I've never heard anyone use 'fish' transitively in that way.

A: What's he doing?
B: He's salmon fishing.

What do you think about that? The word fishing is a verb there. It doesn't sound too bad to me. Not sure.

jutfrank said:

A: What's he doing?
B: He's salmon fishing.

What do you think about that? The word fishing is a verb there. It doesn't sound too bad to me. Not sure.

Click to expand...

I'd say that "salmon-fishing" (note the hyphen) is a compound verb formed by conversion from a noun. It is defective in that there is no verb-form other than the gerund-participle, cf. the ungrammatical *He salmon-fished. Nevertheless, salmon-fishing would seem to be a verb, not a noun.

Note that a locative adjunct could be added, as in He's salmon-fishing in the local river.

Other similar examples include They went deer-hunting and They spent their holiday trout-fishing.

I'm not terribly bothered by fish salmon, although I'd be more likely to use salmon fishing.

For what it's worth, Webster's does give both transitive and intransitive listings for the verb fish. It even happens to use the example of fish salmon.

Edit: Collins does have transitive verb entries as well, but only under the AmE listings. It doesn't include a specific example of fish (type of fish).

I will add that it's quite common to use it transitively with the sense of 'grope/fumble about' or 'guide through'. That's of course different from the sense the OP is asking about (i.e. catching a fish).

For example, I've had to fish my keys (and the occasion ring) out of drains, as well as having fished wiring through conduits.

Since I don't find any transitive entries in Cambridge, perhaps this is a difference in AmE and BrE?