DRIFT NETS AND TRAMMELS 337 



prevent damage to the nets from hitching in rocks. A 

 train of nets is, however, made fast at fairly frequent 

 intervals to a stout hauling warp, which serves the 

 double purpose of preventing nets being lost if the 

 head rope is cut by a passing steamship, and of taking a 

 part of the strain during the process of hauling. 



We are informed by well-known makers that a short 

 train of drift nets — say, 400 yards long, hanging about 

 7 yards deep — mounted on two lines on top and 

 bottom, and corked on top, should cost about £16 16s. 

 In the case of such a short train a separate hauling 

 rope could probably be safely dispensed with, but the 

 above estimate does not include buoys or buoy lines. 



To prove effective, drift nets must be fished by night, 

 or, if by day, only in thick or discoloured water ; fisher- 

 men, as the result of long experience, generally believe 

 that the greatest number of fish enter the nets just 

 about dusk and dawn. Drift nets should be shot from 

 a vessel moving with the wind ; when the nets are all 

 overboard, a greater or less length of hauling warp 

 (according to wind, size of vessel, and length of train 

 of nets) is paid out, and the vessel brought up head to 

 wind ; masts are unstepped, and all gear likely to offer 

 resistance to the wind stowed, and both vessel and nets 

 drift on the tide, the weight of the vessel tending to 

 keep the hauling rope taut, and so to prevent the nets 

 fouling. 



The trammel * is set in the same way as a gill net, 

 but its action is different ; it is peculiar in being made 

 up of three distinct nets or sets of meshes fastened 

 together at the head, foot, and ends. The two outer 

 nets are of large mesh, mounted taut on the head and 

 ground ropes, and set so that the meshes exactly corre- 



* The term " trammel " is commonly applied to gill nets 

 in Ireland. 



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