b CALIFORNIA FISH AND GAME. 



The reinaiiiiiig space forward is used for linos and gear. On the deck 

 between the crew's quarters and the shrimp locker is a crude wooden 

 windlass placed horizontally and with four w(joden spokes i)rojecting 

 by which it is turned by the hands and feet of the operatiu'. From the 

 drum of this windlass a line passes forwai'd through a notch in the 

 elongated bow post of the l)oat. This windlass and line is used to lift 

 the series of nets from their fishing position at the bottom of the bay. 

 The boats are of sufficient size to carry sixty wet nets and ten to twelve 

 tons of catch. 



Nets. Each separate net is constructed in the shape of a funnel. 

 They are usually thirty-two feet long, with the larger opening or mouth 

 about eighteen feet in diameter, from which the net tapers to the narrow 

 opening a foot and one-half in diameter at the end of the sack. This 

 narrow or cod end of the net is closed by a string which can be untied to 

 remove the catch when the nets are pulled up. The nets are made in 

 China from a very strong and durable twisted grass-like fibre. The 

 net has a mesh of three and one-half inches near the mouth but the size 

 i-apidly diminishes toward the small end until the sack has meshes of 

 one-half inch or less. This small-meshed end of the net, which has to 

 sustain the weight of the catch when the net is pulled from the water, 

 is usually reinforced by a net of coarse twine placed around the outside. 

 in making the webbing of these nets square knots are iised instead of 

 the usual knot used by fishermen the world over. The nets are dried 

 and tanned about once a month and with care they will last a year. 

 Their cost is about $25 Mexican in China. After paying freight and 

 other charges and adding the hanging line around the larger opening 

 they cost here about the same amoimt in gold. 



Method of Operating Nets. Each junk operates a set of nets, thirty 

 to sixty in number, which are set side by side at the bottom of the bay 

 with their larger openings or mouths open to the current. The nets 

 are held in place by a series of brails or speaders — 2x3 inch sticks of 

 pine five feet long — each of Avhich is held to a short stake driven in the 

 ])ottom of the bay by a line from either end, of sufficient length to permit 

 of the brails with the nets attached being lifted to the surface during the 

 slack water between tides, without detaching them from the stake. The 

 stakes to which the brails are attached are driven twenty-four feet 

 apart across the current in the muddy bottom of the bay in a very 

 ingenious manner. For driving these stakes a very long tapering pole 

 is used with a four-inch iron pipe fitted on the larger end so that a 

 hollow end of the pipe projects a couple of feet beyond the end of the 

 pole. Selecting a stake with lines and brail attached, its head is inserted 

 in the hollow end of the pipe where it fits loosely but is kept from falling 

 out by holding on to the brail lines while the pole is held in the vertical 

 position over the spot where it is to be driven. The pole with the stake 

 in place is then lowered from the boat until the stake is pressed into 

 the mud. The stake is then driven home by repeatedly lifting the pole 

 a short distance and then loAvering it forcibly. The stakes are driven 

 twenty-four feet apart across the current so that each brail Avhen it is 

 in position with nets attached will stand vertically on the bottom in 

 each space between the mouths of the nets. Attached in this way, the 

 net mouths instead of being circular are now rectangular in shape, the 

 opening being twenty-four feet across and about four and one-half feet 



