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MARINE PRODUCTS OF COMMERCE 



This type of net has certain advantages over purse seines: It costs less, can be 

 operated by a smaller crew, and the absence of purse rings make it less likely 

 to foul on the bottom when used in shallow water. 



(Courtesy R. J. Ederer Co.) 

 Fig. 13-9. Pacific Coast lampara net in operation, for live bait. 



Otter Trawl and Other Bag Nets. The earhest notice of the trawl net fishery in 

 England, where it apparently developed, is found in the following exerpt from a 

 petition to Parliament in 1376. ". . . some fishermen have during the seven years 

 past, by a subterfuge, contrived a new instrument . . . made after the fashion 

 of a 'dag' (drag) for oysters, which is unusually long, to which instrument is 

 attached a net of so small a mesh, no manner of fish however small, entering 

 within it, can pass out and are compelled to remain therein and be taken." Al- 

 though the oyster dredge or drag thus appears to be of ancient origin, there is 

 yet some question as to whether this gear or the seine first gave rise to the idea 

 of the trawl. 



About 1850 the otter trawl was in use. It resembled the present-day trawl, 

 having doors fastened to the end of the wings, which by their kitelike action 

 cause the mouth of the net to stay open without the necessity for beams. The name 

 "trawling" was evidently derived from trailing or dragging, the trawl being a bag 

 net which is towed, trailed, or trawled along the bottom, and so constructed as 

 to capture those fish which naturally keep on or near the bottom. 



"The remarkable development of beam trawling and subsequently otter trawl- 

 ing between 1850 and 1880 brought about a growth of prosperity without parallel 

 in the history of the British fisheries." This statement was made in 1887 by Mr. 

 J. W. Collins, former U. S. Fisheries Commissioner. 



It is interesting to note a parallel development in U. S. fisheries between 1905, 

 when the first otter trawler was built and put into operation, and 1930, in which 

 year over 100 offshore and many times this number of smaller inshore trawlers 

 were in operation. During 1930 these vessels accounted for 70 per cent of the 

 entire ground fish catch in the North Atlantic. With it came new methods of 

 handling fish ashore in mass quantities, adjusted to the continuous inflow of fresh 

 fish. Its adoption has accoimted for the development of many major U. S. fisheries, 

 to such an extent that today otter trawls rank second in importance and are re- 

 sponsible for catching over 21 per cent of our total annual catch. 



