Mainzer, however, severely restricts this freedom of fishing.[1040] “Incidentally information is given of a modification of the regulation. For instance, if any one set up a net on a shore or a bank, others were not allowed to fish in proximity to it. They were only allowed to cast their nets at a distance of one parasang away.”
This sentence apparently implies that the first comer to some position on land acquired a legal temporary possession of fishing for the distance of a parasang. This regulation (extracted, apparently, from the reference 5, i.e. to Baba Bathra, 21 b) came into being (according to Rabbi Gershom, as cited by Mainzer), “because the fisherman scatters bait in the water which attracts the fish to his net. But if another person sets up his net near by, the fish at the sight of the fresh bait would swim to the other spot, and so the first fisherman would suffer loss.”
The first (comer), adds Mainzer, “by the setting up of his net has acquired a priority claim over all the fish of a definite area.”
This theory of possession appears to me quite untenable, for two reasons.
The first, because no words, judgment, or even obiter dictum contained in the reference given, support it. A Rabbi’s pious opinion does not suffice, as Baba Bathra, 21b, makes clear.[1041] The passage runs:
“Rabbi Hona said, ‘If a man who lives in a passage has set up a mill, and another in the same passage comes and likewise sets up one, the former has the right to prevent him, for he can say to him, Thou cuttest off my means of livelihood.’” In support may be quoted: “The fish net must be removed from the fish which another is already trying to catch as far as to allow the fish to escape.” “How far is that?” Rabba, son of Rabbi Hona answered, “As far as a parasang.” The case is otherwise with fish to which lines have been cast.”[1042]
My second reason is the manifest absurdity of the enormous area allotted to the individual netter. Our latest authority, Westberg, computes that the parasang was equal to 3 miles 1335 yards, or about 37⁄10 miles Klio, xiv. 338 ff.).[1043]
Let us now see how this parasang possession works out on Lake Tiberias, the only sheet of water where netting widely prevailed.
Its extreme length is about thirteen miles: its greatest width less than seven. Allowing for sinuosities of coast line, let us concede fifty miles in circumference. This extent of shore, if the area of a parasang is possessed on only one side of the netter, would suffice for 13½ netters, or, if on both sides, for 6¾ netters, i.e. a monopoly on the most prolific water, which, in Euclidian parlance, “is absurd.”
If we disregard the words “set up a net on a bank,” and allow that the parasang possession holds merely for the surface area, we are immediately confronted by two different questions.