I've been playing the game since it first came out and this is the first time I've seen this happen. My farmers go to the lab and get a tool. They then walk to the beach, put the tool in the water and come up with a fish!!

Has this happened to anyone else?

it happend to me i think it's cool

They are spear-fishing. You can read more about it in discussions such as this one.

yes I noticed too, they went 'fishing' and walked away from the beach to get a spear!

I always thought that is a very sturdy, masculine way of fishing but the women couldn't resist this method either

I never noticed if they catch more fish using a spear though, maybe they do because in VV4 harvesting berries with a spear gets them a much bigger amount of berries

The fish is worth the same amount of food points whether caught by spear or by hand. As mentioned in the earlier thread that Barbara linked to, they take about the same time to catch a fish using a spear as with the usual method, provided they initiated the fishing action themselves. If they are dropped in the ocean and decide to go spear-fishing, they'll walk out of the ocean, fetch a spear, then go back to the ocean, thus taking longer. It's best therefore to keep a villager selected, and if it looks like they are going back for a spear pick them up and drop them in again until they decide to use the "old-fashioned" way.

Then why bother fishing with spear?

Maybe they hate getting their feet wet? (women)
Or they like to impress the girls fishing the macho way (men)

It's an extra feature. I just think it's a cool detail. (I don't care about the reasoning behind it! XD)