A Stitch in Time 



Neal Harvey 



Photos by Scott Taylor 



BY KATHY HART 



Almost without thinking, Neal Harvey whips 

 his needle in and out of the webbing. His nim- 

 ble fingers tie knot after knot in a time-honored 

 craft that is as synonymous with fishing in 

 coastal North Carolina as the fish themselves. 



Harvey is a netmaker. 



He slipped into the profession. He used to 

 fish and mend nets, his own and others, on the 

 side. But he decided to combine his knowl- 

 edge of how nets fished with how nets were made. 



He and his son set up business and hung a 

 sign proclaiming their profession outside an old 

 building in Davis. 



But Harvey joined a profession, what many 

 consider a craft, that is on the wane. 



Many older fishermen know how to con- 

 struct, or hang, their own nets. And any good 

 fisherman knows how to repair a net, says Sea 

 Grant agent Jim Bahen. 



But many of today's year-round fishermen are 

 too busy to make their own. Instead, they turn 

 to a skilled, professional netmaker to hang the 

 most valuable piece of equipment on their boats. 



In Brunswick County that means fishermen 

 often turn to Steve and Sabrina Parrish, owners 

 of a net shop in Varnamtown. 



The Parrishes began making nets with the 

 help of Sabrina's grandfather, Crawford Fulford, 

 and Steve's uncle, who taught the couple about 

 meshes, floats, chains and, most importantly, 

 net designs. Steve designs and cuts the nets; 

 Sabrina sews them and runs the business. 



"I helped Granddaddy do the chafers and 

 thread the needles when I was young," Sabrina 

 says. "I guess you could say netmaking was in 

 my blood." 



Fulford hung nets for over 60 years. He kept 



notebooks scrawled with descriptions and 



'"• '^iimwmW^k^?i^!tKtm^^ — • ^Ot.vXv 

 drawings of each net he made. 



"When Granddaddy stopped making nets, 

 he asked his customers to use us," Sabrina 

 says. "If we were making a net for one of the 

 customers he recommended, he would come 

 over here and count the meshes to make sure 

 it was right before we sold it." 



Sabrina says when her grandfather began 

 hanging nets, the mesh and roping were made 

 of cotton or other natural fibers. To make them 

 sturdy and long-lasting, the nets were dipped 

 in tar. 



By then, machines wove the cotton webbing. 

 But prior to mechanization, fibers were spun in- 

 to twine and the twine was knotted into web- 

 bing. It was a long and tedious process, but 

 one fishermen used for centuries. 



Before motor power, Tar Heel fishermen used 

 gill nets, pound nets, fyke nets and seines that 

 were either staked in the water or dragged by 

 hand. 



Watermen in the Northeast had pulled the 

 funnel-shaped trawls behind sail-powered 

 boats. But trawls didn't gain wide acceptance 

 until the advent of motor power at the turn of 

 the century. 



As transportation improved and refrigeration 

 became prevalent, fishermen began targeting 

 more species of fish. And to catch the different 

 species, nets became more specialized. Net- 

 makers varied the size, shape and webbing in 

 their nets to catch different fish. 



Even today, netmakers continue to modify 

 their nets, says Harvey. 



"Netmaking is an everlearning process," 

 Harvey says. "The bigger boats that go up 

 North bring back new net designs, and every 

 four or five years shrimp nets are redesigned." 



Harvey says netmakers learn about new net I 

 designs from publications such as National 

 Fisherman or by word-of-mouth. 



"You can bet if one fisherman sees another 

 fisherman bringing in more boxes of fish he's 

 going to find out what kind of net that fisher- 



