XCvill MODES OP FISHING. 



their being conveyed more rapidly to the shore, kept fresh for a long period, 

 as well as being readily distributed through a wide expanse of country. 



We possess two classes of trawlers,* the beam-trawlers that fish the sea 

 either singly or more commonly in fleets (at least for the last 25 or 30 

 years) ; and the inshore-trawlers which are employed in bays and shallow 

 waters where they rarely work in companies. 



The beam-trawlf is a purse-shaped net of a triangular shape, sometimes 

 as much as 100 feet long, along the upper edge of the mouth of which is 

 fastened a horizontal beam, from about 25 to 50 feet in length ; this beam 

 is kept off the ground 'by means of two iron heads, so. that merely the under 

 portion of the net and the ground rope touch the bottom of the sea when it 

 is being towed along by the trawler : it is usually employed over a muddy 

 or sandy bottom : but lately steam ones have used them over rough ground 

 along our south coast. 



The under portion of the net which touches the ground is subject to 

 friction, and so much so, that various kinds of chafing-pieces have to be 

 added to prevent its giving way, while the amount of pressure inside the 

 net when being towed is so great as to cause a resistance sufficient to reduce 

 the speed of the trawlers from perhaps eight to one knot. The consequence 

 is that fish inside this bag-net become more or less bruised from violence. 

 We are told, by theorists that the trawl by pressure can do no injury to 

 young fish, but one would imagine that a net that requires a hide along 

 its under surface, and containing some ton or more of contents, must do 

 injury if scraped along over young and delicate flat-fishes as well as tear up 

 and destroy sea- weeds where the eggs of herrings and invertebrates are 

 deposited (page xcii). 



Mr. Ansell asserts that when the "silver pits" in the North Sea were 

 first worked (1878-79), a trawler got a ton to a ton and a half of soles in one 

 night, of from 12 to 24 value. Now, although the wholesale price has 

 increased, the take has so diminished that trawlers have to seek fresh ground. 

 While Mr. Sim remarks that although in his opinion there are as many 

 soles caught now as fifty years since, they are about one-fiftieth part of their 

 weight. At Yarmouth beach you can see the men picking out small 

 immature fish soles half as long as a finger, and turbot, so to speak, not 

 larger than a thumb-nail. It was no use throwing them overboard, because, 

 after they once got into the net, they died. 



Our inshore bays and banks at sea are the chief nurseries of our flat- 

 fishes, and of many other forms which are taken by trawls ; in fact most, if not 



* I omit otter-trawls as they are not largely used by the fishing trade : also the complaints 

 of line and drift fishermen that much damage is done to their industry by beam-trawlers. 



t The Scotch herring trawl is the English seine (see page c) : the American trawl is a long 

 line with baited hooks. 



