Netting and Trawling Seining

Drift-nets as employed in Great Britain are of fine cotton, the rougher nets being used now only by continental nations. The size of net varies with the locality and the fish to be taken, as does the mesh; but a common length is 3o yds. The mesh measures in rows of knots to the yard vary from over 6o for sprat, 29 to 36 for herring, and from 25 to 36 for mackerel. The nets are shot end to end on the same long warp, which may extend for as much as 3 miles, all headlines are buoyed by cork, the ground ropes weighted, and in addition the warp is buoyed at intervals by buoys called bowls, the net being attached to the buoy ropes also. Some small nets are used with their headline at the surface, but usually they are sunk, except for mackerel. The warp is sometimes worked above the net, sometimes a fathom or more below it, the former are known as "sunk" nets, and French and Dutch drifters follow this plan; the others are called "swum" nets. When riding at nets the strain of the warp is taken by a chain or rope called the "tissot" which joins the warp near the net. The warp is of 31 in. manila. The evolutions of shooting and hauling cannot be here described. The former is done so as to ensure the nets drifting free of the ship, the latter with the vessels, head up wind.

Steam has replaced sail in drift vessels, and even more com pletely, such sailing drifters as remain being aided by auxiliary motor engines. An interesting development is the success of small vessels capable both of working drift-nets and at other seasons a small otter-trawl.

Stationary Nets.

Stationary nets, except for a few fish are relatively unimportant and can receive little more than a men tion. They are of four main kinds. Stake-nets are gill nets usually set up between tide marks and supported by stakes. Occasionally the net between pairs of stakes is occupied by a simple bag, as in Germany. If the stake-net acts as a "leader" into a circular enclosure of netting the net is a pound- or kettle-net. The bag net and fly-net for the capture of the salmon are merely elabo rated forms of this type. The pound is roofed by netting, in the fly-net, and in the bag-net, which is floated—not staked—floored also. It is wedge shaped, narrowing gradually from the entrance end and divided incompletely by oblique internal walls or valves of netting into side compartments.

The stow-net is used in the Wash, Thames and Solent for the capture of sprats. It is a pyramidal net, about 20o ft. long, whose nearly square mouth is kept open by 20 ft. "balks" of timber, the bottom one weighted. Four bridles lead from the ends of the balks to the chain by which the vessel employing the net is anchored, always in a tideway. The sprats are carried by the tide into the net, which on the slackening of the tide is hauled after it has been closed by raising the bottom balk up to lie against the top one. A small stow-net is used also for taking "whitebait."