A gill-net really consists of three nets. The net in the middle has small meshes and is made of rather fine twine, the two nets on the outside have very large meshes, a foot or more square. When a fish runs against the middle net, the fine meshes catch him behind the gills and hold him, or, if he is very big and strong, he makes a pocket of the small net in trying to push through it and thus gets tangled up and caught.
After Barker had set the net, he told his boy companion: “Now, Bill, we’ll make a big drive.”
Bill did not know what Barker meant by making a drive for fish. He had heard of the Indians driving buffalo, but he did not get much time to think about the new kind of drive.
“Take that long pole and get into the boat with me,” the trapper told him, as he paddled up the slough a little way.
“Now,” he ordered, as he turned around and started back toward the net, “beat the water with that pole and make as much noise as you can.”
Very soon the two men could see streaks in the smooth water. “Oh, I see,” exclaimed Bill, as he splashed the water to right and left, “we’re trying to drive them into the net. There, we’ve got one! See the float go down. There’s another one. Watch the big one! He isn’t going in. Look at him. See him run along the net. Look at him! He’s run around the net and is going down the river like a streak!”
“He is a big old buffalo-sucker,” the trapper laughed. “He is too wise to be caught in a gill-net.”
“Say, Mr. Barker,” the boy asked, “can fish think?”
“I reckon some of the old ones can,” Barker answered. “Well never catch that big fellow. I think he weighs fifteen pounds, I reckon his nose has touched a net before.”
The net was literally filled with fish of many kinds, suckers, pickerel, pike, bass, big sunfish, and fierce-looking gars.