An extremely gullible person who swallows a fantastic yarn or lie hook, line and sinker is like a hungry fish who gulps down not only the fisherman’s baited hook, but the line beneath the hook and the line’s weight or sinker as well. The Americanism has been traced back to the age of Davy Crockett, when tall tales hooked many a fish hungry for belief. But a sixteenth century British expression, to swallow a gudgeon (a small bait fish), conveyed the same idea. No one knows for sure, but before fishing hooks were invented, early man may have used nets, traps, clubs, spears, harpoons and the bow and arrow to catch fish. Fishing hooks and line do date back at lease to Mesolithic times (a transitional period between the Paleolithic and Neolithic ages), as the remains of many early bone fishhooks in the Baltic area indicate. Metal hooks made their first appearance with the coming of metal during Neolithic times.