

SHRIMPING. 293 



SHRIMPING. 



This kind of fishing is carried on either by hand-nets 

 or some form of trawl. The hand or " shove-net " varies 

 a little in shape on different parts of the coast, but it may 

 be described generally as a large shallow semicircular or 

 triangular net, extended in front by a light wooden scraper 

 eight or ten feet long, into which a handle or pole of the 

 same length is fixed at right angles. The net extends 

 from the scraper to within two or three feet of the farther 

 end of the pole, and generally has a pocket of netting below 

 it at that part. 



This net the shrimper pushes or shoves before him as he 

 walks through the shallow water over the sands where the 

 shrimps abound, and he every now and then raises the 

 scraper that the shrimps in the net may be thrown back 

 into the pocket. On the Thames a net of quite a different 

 construction is used, and is worked generally two at a time 

 from large sailing boats. In general form the Thames 

 shrimp-net resembles an ordinary trawl such as has been 

 previously described, but instead of the under part being 

 cut away in a curve, it is quite square with the front of the 

 upper part, which has a light pole across it corresponding 

 to the beam of the beam-trawl. This Thames shrimp-net 

 consists, in fact, of a triangular purse-shaped net, like a 

 trawl, the lower part of the mouth being fastened to a flat 

 wooden scraper weighted with lead, and about ten feet 

 long, instead of having a ground-rope ; and parallel to it, 

 and supported by an upright stick a foot and a half long, 

 fixed in the middle of it, is a pole six feet long, to which 

 the upper side of the net is fastened, as in the beam-trawl, 

 the pole and the scraper being kept square by ropes leading 

 from the one to the other at their extremities. Trawl-heads 



