Squirrel fishing is the sporting practice of “catching” squirrels and attempting to lift them into the air using a nut (preferably a peanut) tied to a string or fishing line, and optionally some kind of fishing pole.

The practice was [re-]popularized by Nicholas Middleton and Zmira Zilkha, during their summers at Middlebury College Italian Language School, Nikolas Gloy and Yasuhiro Endo, at the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University, and by the Berkeley Squirrel Fisher’s Club, an official student group at the University of California, Berkeley

Yes, that’s right – re-popularized.

It turns out “squirrel-fishing” goes back at least to 1889, to judge from this edition of the Pullman Herald from Washington.

Via Wikipedia.