Zick works a carved wooden fish decoy tied to an old fly line. I hold a heavy iron spear, resting one of its tines on a ledge just above the water. When a northern shows up to investigate the ...

If the dating is correct, it suggests our evolutionary forebears mastered the art of the stone-tipped spear half a million years ago—some 250,000 years earlier than previously thought.

It might sound odd, especially in Colorado where most anglers throw flies on the water, but we were spearfishing, an ancient sport in which you stalk and spear a fish underwater. Spearfishing’s roots ...