The Fishing Industry

by William E. Gibbs

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.