This chapter deals with fishing and archaeology. Knowledge held by fishermen has contributed to underwater archaeology’s great moments. It is comparable to ‘local’ knowledge on land, although the locales may be far offshore. To some extent, fishing interests and the management of underwater cultural heritage are at odds but hardly as much as sometimes claimed. Future cooperation with fishermen is of the essence, as the fishing industry has been an essential informer for the development of archaeology offshore, all over the world, and continues to be so. This chapter explores how the development of fishing techniques over the last 150 years has informed prehistoric archaeology of the European continental shelves, notably of the North Sea. It does so through a historical analysis of technological development in its social setting and by highlighting some developments in Dutch fishing communities. It puts collecting of bones and trade in antiquities in perspective. It is mostly concerned, however, with the contingent knowledge base of archaeology and therefore informs archaeological epistemology.