METHODS OF FISHING
Fish may be captured with spear, trap, line or net. Which of these
methods is employed necessarily depends very much upon the size and
habits of the fish, and upon the skill and available equipment of the
fishermen.
Spears and traps were used in prehistoric times and survive to this day
in various forms, e.g. harpoons, lobster pots, hedge baulks, fishing
weirs and the various ingenious traps and entanglements that are used
by primitive races in all parts of the world. The logical development
of the spear and the trap into the line and the net was made possible
by the invention of string.
To design and construct a trap, it is generally necessary to know
something of the habits of the fish to be caught. Hedge-baulks and
fishing weirs are fairly extensive enclosures made of brushwood,
basket work, stakes or stones, constructed on the foreshore in such a
way that at high tide the sea carries the fish into the enclosure and
leaves them there when it recedes. These fishing weirs are probably the
primitive origin of most forms of fishing nets.
The crab or lobster pot or creel is constructed of basket-work, in
shape somewhat like a safety inkpot, so that the lobster or crab can
easily enter it, but, once in, is unable to escape. Lobster pots,
suitably baited with fish and weighted, are distributed over the
fishing ground—a rocky bottom full of crevices—from small, open boats,
and are gathered the next day.
Fishing with hook and line is also a very ancient method. Before the
discovery of metals, the hooks were made of bone. Some people—notably
the Chinese—frequently use unbaited hooks, and rely upon the jerk of
the hook at the right moment to secure the fish. Generally, however,
the hook is suitably baited, the method being used chiefly for fish
that seek their food by scent or sight, e.g. cod and shark. Line
fishing for cod is still employed on a large scale off the North of
Scotland and the coast of Newfoundland.
In lining, the fish are caught individually. A “line” may be as much
as seven miles long. Short pieces of line from two to three feet long
are attached to it at regular intervals. These lines are called the
“snoods,” and carry the hooks. The line is usually shot at night, and
fished in the morning. In most cases line fishing is rapidly being
superseded by trawling.
The invention of netting marked a notable advance in the primitive
development of the fishing industry. The net in all its various forms
and applications is the characteristic and all-important implement of
the fishing industry. A net may be used either to surround a fish and
drag it out of the water, as in seining or trawling, or it may be used
to enmesh the fish, as in drift netting. The rise and development of
the sea fishing industry has been due very largely to the gradually
improved efficiency of the net.
Nets were originally used on the shore. A long strip of netting was
attached to upright stakes, to form an enclosure with an opening
towards the sea, constructed like a fishing weir in such a way that
the fish enter the enclosure at high tide and are unable to escape.
Such devices constructed on shore are known as “fixed engines”; they
include stake nets, poke nets, stream nets and purse nets. The net may
simply form the wall of an enclosure (stake net). This enclosure may
be furnished with a pocket at one corner (poke net). It may consist
essentially of one long, deep pocket kept open by rings or stakes at
intervals (purse and hose nets). It may be simply a wall of netting
into which the fish thrust their heads; owing to their gill openings
they are unable to withdraw and so become entangled (stream net).
The first development of a movable net was the seine or drag net. The
seine is a semi-circular drag net, which is shot in shallow water so
as to enclose an area of water close to the shore. It is then hauled
ashore, and gathers up the fish that are in the enclosed area of water.
Such a net is limited to inshore use. Generally, a line is attached to
each end of the net. The free end of one of these lines is made fast to
the shore by a stake, and the net is paid out from a small boat. When
the whole of the net has been paid out, the boat travels round until
the net forms a semi-circle of which the diameter is parallel to the
shore; the net is then hauled in.
The seine net was used in ancient times by Phoenicians, Greeks, and
other Mediterranean peoples. Various types of seines are in common use
to-day. In Denmark a seine net is employed to catch eels and plaice.
On the Cornish coast pilchards are caught with a large seine up to
two hundred fathoms long and eight fathoms deep. In the United States
a seine is used in water of any depth to catch mackerel. Rings are
attached to the foot-rope of the net, and by passing a line through
these rings and drawing it tight, the net is transformed into a bowl of
netting. This is called the purse seine.
[Illustration: FIG. 9
TRAWLING (_circa_ 1750)]
The seine was first improved by the addition of a pocket at its centre.
Then the sides or wings were gradually lengthened, until finally it
developed into a deep, conical, bag-shaped net, furnished with long
arms or wings. This was dragged along the bottom, behind a boat in
full sail. The net was weighted and its mouth kept open by attaching
its upper edge to a beam of wood (beam trawl). When the net was full
of fish, it was run ashore. Ultimately, instead of drawing the net
ashore, the fishermen remained at sea and hauled the net on board with
a winch. In this way the seine net gradually developed into the trawl
net. The trawl net marked a big improvement, for it could be fished in
deeper water further from shore, and thus greatly increased the scope
of fishing operations, and led to the rapid growth and improvement of
demersal fishing.
Trawling is said to have been invented at the end of the seventeenth
century by the Brixham fishermen. The first trawlers were quite small
vessels, and were followed towards the end of the eighteenth century by
the smack. The smack reached its maximum size and efficiency at about
the middle of the nineteenth century. Some of the smacks that are still
fishing from Brixham—durable, seaworthy, and with beautiful lines—are
probably a hundred years old.
In 1870, there were a thousand first-class smacks in the North Sea,
three hundred in the English Channel, and over a hundred in the Irish
Sea.
The smacks were fitted with a tank in the well of the ship, in which
the fish were kept in sea-water and brought in alive. In Denmark
to-day, plaice are brought ashore and sold alive.
The subsequent development of trawl fishing has been in the
construction of larger nets, worked by more powerful trawling vessels
driven by steam.
The size of beam trawl that can be worked by a large sailing smack is
limited by the trawling power of the vessel, and also by the difficulty
of constructing and handling very long beams. The maximum length of
beam in general use by sailing smacks is fifty feet. The length of
the net, from its mouth to the narrow of “cod” end, rarely exceeds
a hundred feet. To each end of the beam is attached a triangular
trawl-head of iron, which moves along the ground and serves to keep
the beam about three and a half feet above the ground. These trawl
crossheads are attached to the ship by bridles and warp.
The upper edge of the net is attached to the beam, the lower edge being
attached to a stout rope—the foot-rope—the ends of which are made fast
to the crossheads. This foot-rope, being considerably longer than the
beam, sweeps along the ground abaft of the beam, to form a deep curve
known as the “bosom” of the net. The result is that, when the foot-rope
disturbs the fish so that they leap to avoid it, the beam has passed on
overhead and they leap into the net.
Pockets are formed in the sides of the net by lacing the top and bottom
together for about two-thirds of the distance from the mouth of the
net towards the cod end. The mouth of a pocket is at the cod end of
the net, so that fish reaching the cod end and attempting to return to
the mouth of the net, generally enter the pockets. A flap of netting
suspended some distance inside the mouth of the net serves as a valve.
It is easily lifted by the incoming fish, but tends to prevent their
escape.
The netting is of hemp, the mesh gradually increasing from one inch at
the cod end to about two inches near the mouth, and is preserved with
tar.
When fishing, the vessel moves ahead at a steady, slow rate of from two
to three miles per hour, dragging the trawl behind it. Smacks always
trawl with the tide. If they trawl against the tide, the net is lifted
from the ground.
During fishing the cod end is closed by the cod line, but at the
conclusion of the trawl the net is hoisted aboard, mouth upwards, and
the contents are discharged upon the deck by drawing the cod line.
The otter trawl that is used by modern steam trawlers is from seventy
to one hundred and twenty feet wide across the mouth, according to the
character of the fishing, and a hundred and ten feet long from the
mouth to the cod end. The otter trawl is shown in Fig. 17. It differs
from the beam trawl in that its mouth is kept open, not by being
attached to a beam, but by otter boards, which are attached one to
each side of the mouth of the net. These are attached to the net and
to the warps by which the net is towed in such a way that the pressure
of the water upon them causes them to diverge, thus keeping the mouth
of the net open. The size of a beam trawl is necessarily limited by
the length of beam obtainable. The size of the otter trawl, however,
is obviously only limited by the power of the steam trawler. The otter
boards measure 11 ft. by 4 ft. 6 ins., are shod with iron, and weigh
15 cwts. each. The warps, as the ropes are called which attach the
otter boards to the ship, are from three hundred to a thousand fathoms
long—generally a little over three times as long as the depth of the
water in which the trawl is to be used. Each board is attached to the
steamer by a separate warp. The upper edge of the mouth of the net is
attached to a strong rope, called the “head” rope. The lower edge of
the mouth of the net is also attached to a strong rope, called the
“foot” rope. As in the beam trawl, the foot rope is considerably longer
than the head line, and forms a bosom. Traps and pockets also are
inserted in the sides of the net. When trawling on rough ground, the
foot rope is furnished with large, heavy, wooden rollers, called the
“bobbins.”
Trawl fishing, until quite recently, was almost entirely confined to
demersal fish, such as cod, plaice, haddock and halibut. In recent
years, however, considerable quantities of herring have been caught by
trawlers.
[Illustration: FIG. 10
DRIFTING (_circa_ 1750)]
=Drifting.= The drift net is essentially a completely submerged,
vertical curtain of netting, one end of which is attached to a boat
called a drifter. The net extends in a straight line from the boat,
and may be as much as three miles long. Unlike the trawl net, the
drift net generally catches one kind of fish only—either herring or
mackerel—drift net fishing being carried on at a time when these fish
come together in shoals near the surface for the purpose of spawning.
The trawl obviously only captures fish living at the bottom. At the
same time, of course, it captures all the fish at the bottom, whether
immature, or useless star fish, etc. The drift net, on the other hand,
is generally used for a particular kind of fish—herring, mackerel,
sprat—and only catches fish above a certain size.
A drifter may be as much as 90 ft. long, with 20 ft. beam and 10 ft.
draught. Its foremast is so constructed that it may be lowered when
the vessel is steaming against a head wind, or when it is fishing.
The ordinary sailing drifter is rapidly being superseded by the
steam drifter, partly because the greater power of the steam driven
boat increases its capacity and scope, and, further, owing to the
centralization of the industry at a few big ports at certain times of
the year, these harbours are so crowded that it is almost impossible to
handle a sailing drifter in them. Many of the larger sailing drifters
have been equipped with petrol engines which largely discount this
disadvantage. A steam drifter can travel at from 11 to 12 knots, and
both steamers and sailers carry a fishing crew of seven men and a boy.
[Illustration: FIG. 11
A SINGLE-BOATER AT FOLKESTONE]
=Inshore Fisheries.= The development of steam fishing—trawling and
drifting—has resulted in the re-grouping of the fishing industry into
two well-marked divisions. Fisheries, whether trawling, drifting or
lining, that are carried on in deep water far from shore in large
steamers, for the most part owned by limited liability companies, are
known as offshore fisheries. The fisheries of the seashore, carried
on by small, privately-owned, sailing smacks and cutters within
territorial waters, are distinguished by the term “inshore fisheries.”
The inshore fisheries are mainly for shellfish, crabs, lobsters,
shrimps and immature deep sea fish such as plaice, soles, flounders,
dabs, codling and sprats.
Shrimps and whiting are caught with trawl nets of 25 ft. beam or less,
and of about 1/4 in. mesh. The net is generally drawn behind a small
cutter, but frequently it is used in shallow water with a horse and
cart. These nets are generally made of flax or cotton, and are either
tanned or tarred, in order to preserve them.
Smaller, fine-meshed, trawl nets are used for catching shrimps and also
immature plaice, soles and dabs. These shrimp nets are either attached
to a long handle and pushed through the water in front of the fisherman
(push nets), or drawn behind a small boat or a horse and cart (trawl
nets).
Larger fish are sometimes caught in shallow water by casting a net over
the fish so as to enclose it (cast nets). The fisherman of the Eastern
Mediterranean uses a cast net with conspicuous skill. The net is
essentially a circular disc of netting, to the circumference of which
small weights are attached at regular intervals. A cord is attached to
the centre of the net, and the fisherman, standing knee-deep in the
water, grasps the net by its centre, swinging it round his head, and
casts it so that as it approaches the water it opens out, and with a
soft splash sinks through the water until it lies outstretched over the
fish. It is then drawn up by the string attached to its centre, and the
weighted edges fall together enclosing the fish.
Fish are often caught on shores and in rivers by causing them to pass
between converging walls of stakes or basket work, until they enter an
enclosure, the floor of which is covered by a net. When the fish have
gathered in the enclosure, the net is pulled up.
The simplest form of inshore fishery is that for periwinkles, in which
they are simply picked off the rock. Mussels live on the sea bottom, on
the lower half of the foreshore. They generally attach themselves to a
stone by a thread. They are usually collected at low tide by hand or,
when submerged, are raked from the bottom. The rake is from 2 to 3 ft.
wide, and is furnished with teeth 10 ins. long, the back of the rake
being covered with netting. Sometimes the mussels are submerged even at
low water and then a short rake is used.
Cockles live about an inch or so below the surface of the sand, and
maintain a connection with the water above by means of small tunnels
in the sand. They occur abundantly in many places between high and
low watermark. When the cockles are abundant they are raked out of
the sand, the rake being from 10 ins. to 1 ft. wide, with teeth 1 in.
long. The cockles are riddled, the small ones being rejected. When the
cockles do not exist in such large numbers, they are obtained by means
of a “jumbo.” This is essentially a block of wood, 3 or 4 ft. long, and
1 ft. wide, furnished with two upright handles. The jumbo is rocked to
and fro on the surface of the sand, with the result that the cockles
are gradually worked up to the surface.