BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 315 
Though the advantages above named are perhaps important ones, 
several trawl-fishermen told the writer that they were opposed to using 
de Caux’s device, because, as they said, “it is too liable to be broken 
in rough weather by slapping against the vessel’s side, and it’s not an 
easy matter to repair it at sea.” 1 
H. C. W. Shepherd, of Lowestoft, exhibited at London a model of a 
beam-trawl, to each head of which was attached a device— shown in Fig. 
5— for ascertaining when the trawl is bottom up on the ground. It was 
explained to the writer by Mr. Shepherd that the tides between Hol- 
land and the English coast frequently run opposite ways, setting one 
way at the surface and in a different direction at the bottom. This pe- 
culiar action of the currents frequently causes the trawl which a vessel 
is towing to be capsized without (so far as the fishermen are able to 
tell by the surface water) there being any apparent reason for it. There- 
fore, according to Mr. Shepherd, much valuable time is often lost by 
the fishermen, who, if using the ordinary form of trawl-head, are not 
able to tell whether it is upset or not ; the result being that they con- 
tinue to tow it without, of course, catching any fish, and they do not 
learn the gear is inverted until it is hove up. The head of the trawl 
represented by the model above referred to would have the following 
measurements : Greatest diameter from lower after corner to center of 
front (outside to outside), 2J feet; height, ground to top of beam end, 
feet; shoe or sole, 6 inches by | inch iron ; front, 4J inches by J inch 
iron ; eye to which bridle shackles, 3 inches long; diameter of eye through 
which foot rope passes, 4J inches. To the upper front side of the head is 
attached, by a key-bolt, d , a movable catch, A, which has a stout, slightly 
curved and pointed upper end. The lower part (when the trawl-head is 
in its proper position) lies against the front of the head-iron, being 
longer and broader than the other, and also pointed or rounded, so that 
it will dig into the bottom like the fluke of an anchor. The purpose of 
1 Mr. Sims, a veteran fisherman and smack-owner of Hull, in discussing the paper 
on trawling read by Mr. Ansell, said he “ did not see any difference in the shape of 
the trawl now from what it was fifty years since, and the only difference was that it 
was extended in size.” 
