What's the most efficient method of catching fish?

Explosives, hands down, by a wide margin. Most people aren't optimizing for pure efficiency though.

Dutch commercial fishers devised a way to electrocute fish and scoop them up.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_pulse_fishing

Leaving aside commercial methods or more...shall we say, exotic methods like explosives or elecroshock, bait fishing is generally more effective.

I do both: I trot bait when the river I fish is unsuitable for the fly.

Big nets.

For my money it's gotta be a fish wheel.

https://youtu.be/xVnRHN2u5GM?t=321

> What's the most efficient method of catching fish?

Currently? Very large industrial fishing nets.

Yet the last time I watched an industrial fishing net unload they dumped about a ton of bycatch to the sea lions. They are pretty efficient at killing unwanted species.

https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/insight/understanding-bycatch...?

>Unwanted catch is an issue both ecologically and economically. Animals that are discarded often die and cannot reproduce, impacting marine ecosystems. Bycatch can slow the rebuilding of overfished stocks, and place protected species such as whales and sea turtles at further risk. Bycatch of species like corals and sponges can cause damage to protected corals and to important fish habitat.