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CHAPTER XVII. 



NETS AND NETTING. 



Before closing this work we will say a few words con- 

 cerning nets and the dangers that follow unrestricted net 

 fishing. When the country was sparsely populated, and 

 fish were abundant, the most ready and effectual methods 

 of capturing them were the best. Now that all kinds of 

 fish have become scarce, and some have disappeared 

 altogether, limits must be placed on their destruction, 

 and the kinds of nets and sizes of mesh must be regula- 

 ted, or the supply will soon be utterly exhausted. There 

 are strong and blindly selfish interests opposed to all 

 legislation in such direction, but the public welfare is 

 paramount and must prevail. If we are to have fish 

 much longer abundant with us the use of nets must be 

 regulated by law. Of all nets the most fatal are the 

 pounds. 



Pound nets are so called from a sort of trap or pound 

 made of netting at their outermost extremity, so arranged 

 that fish can enter it, but cannot escape. To this trap is 

 attached a long wing or wall of netting, and it has 

 mesh fine enough to prevent the passage of the smallest fish 

 which are only used and only fit for manure, the mesh 

 not being over one and a quarter inches stretched, or three 

 quarters of an inch between knots. The wing reaches 

 from the trap, which is either located in the channel 

 or adjacent to it, well up ashore, and is hung on 

 stakes driven firmly into the ground. It is some- 

 times six miles long, and has sometimes six traps 

 at intervals of a mile each, and is never taken up after 

 once it is set, except for a change of location, or 

 old borers reproves them, without permission of 



