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How Gill Nets Work.


samuel-cox

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Having worked on a 35 foot gill netting boat, I thought it worth sharing some of the information on how different styles of gill netting work, so anglers new to the sport can have some facts rather than the crap printed in much of the yellow angling press.

Standard fixed gill nets are basically a wall of 95 mil mono mesh with a anchor at each end.

Fixed tremmle nets are a wall of 95 mil mesh with another wall of much larger mesh next to it, again with a anchor each end. The idea of the larger mesh wall is so larger fish ray , turbot etc bounce off the 95 mil mesh and tangle in the larger mesh.

Any fixed gill net or tremmle net will only fish properly at slack water as the tide pushes the net flat to the sea bed when running.

Tangle or ray nets do fish a little in a bit of tide. The net only fishes for around 45 minutes at slack water. As the tide eases the floats become buoyant pulling the net into a wall of mesh until the tide picks up.

Drift nets are a wall of normal 95 mil mesh with a dan at each end. A dan is a pole often thick bamboo, with a flag at the top and a weight at the bottom.

These drift nets are fished at the last run of tide and left to drift with the time for around a hour.If they are fished in any strong tide they tend to spin up.

Fish caught in these nets have to be of the right size to get propely caught in the gills.A 95 mill mesh will catch mainly fish of around 2lb. Smaller fish normally swim through the meshes and larger fish often bounce off.When small fish are caught they are normally caught on gill spins and can be let go alive.

One thing I personally didnt like about fixed gear is the amount of crabs caught, somtimes thousands. The fisherman just smashes them up with a mallet and shakes the bits out of his net.

Having said that, drifting for bass and mullet was very selective with very few under sized fish caught.

Herrings and mackeral are often fished for with gill nets, these nets have much smaller meshes.So us anglers should bear in mind that our bait is often caught by gill netters so hated by most anglers.

I am a great believer in the truth being the best weapon to win a argument, rather than the untruthes so otften printed.

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samuel-cox:

 

Fish caught in these nets have to be of the right size to get propely caught in the gills.A 95 mill mesh will catch mainly fish of around 2lb. Smaller fish normally swim through the meshes and larger fish often bounce off.When small fish are caught they are normally caught on gill spins and can be let go alive.

Hmmmm not quite true, I spent a lot of time in the early 80 ies helping a local earn a living, gill netting in Loch Long.. 1x 100yrd net and only set twice a week. so I know quite well how and what get's caught.

 

In areas where thre is little tide the nets fish all the time.

 

large round fish do not "bounce" off the nets, they get caught by their jaw bones. We used a 4" mesh and caught cod to over 40lb, the double figure hake we caught were always caught by the teeth, the fish would then roill it's self up in the net.

 

So really not only did you catch the small imature fish , you also caught the adults.

Davy

 

"Skate Anglers Have Bigger Tackle"

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In my experience on the Blackwater in Essex, the boat worked 5k of 95 mil mono drift nets for bass. I was a bad day if we caught 5 small undersized bass, and when we did they were returned alive. fixed tremmels do catch a lot of unwanted stuff like crabs, sea urchins and small flatties. But drift netting can be very selective and if trawling could be completely banned drift netting could play a part in a substainable fishery.

I do thing that 95mil mesh is to small and should be increased by law asap.

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just get rid of nets out to 3 miles from the shore full stop, that way we get a chance to catch fish, the fish get a chance spawn, and the commercials catch a better size of fish further out,simple innit.

I Fish For Sport Not Me Belly

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Guest stevie cop

I agree, gill nets can be a very selective way of fishing, but they are just too effective.

 

O.K, so there are a lot of things that work against the gill nets, like tide, snags, weed, may rot, crabs, slipper limpets, jelly fish, phosphuressence, etc, etc. They are not as easy to use as most anglers believe, but they do catch **** loads of fish!

 

Unlike a trawler, which only catches part of whats in front of it, (yes, fish do swim in and out of trawl nets), gill nets take most of whats there. Trammel nets, to my mind, are worse.

 

Trawling has been going on for centuries, but mono gill nets have only been around since the early 70's. The fishing has rapidly declined since the introduction of mono gill nets.

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Well put Steve,rational comment,and while economic default continues to wipe out the fishing industry at local levels, as I understand it a pair of scots boats are challenging the govmt ban,but there you go,they actualy pay people to lobby on there behalf, I was going to bang on about..well dont matter, I am learning to bite my tongue! ha,ha, Happy New Year, Ill give you a call one evening if your about, Nigel

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In my ideal world all commercial fishing should be done off shore leaving inshore marks to anglers who should have a 2 to 3 fish limit when bass fishing. The mesh sizes should be increased so the 2lb bass targeted are alowed to grow. The fishery as a whole would then grow, and the size of fish angler could catch would be larger.

All trawling should be banned, trawling in the old days was done by sale powered boats towing faily small trawls and was more substainable than modern trawling. Grownd trawling is like draging a plough across the sea bed destroying the very foundations of the food chain.

palagic Pair trawling catches dolphins and sea birds.Drift netting for tune where dolphins are living should be stopped.

Most mackeral are trawled although many are hook and line caught and some gill netted.

Many anglers use trawled crabs for bait, theseare often trawled in bass and mullet nersury areas, ripping the sea bed up as they go.

I understand this is a complex argument but there is no doutin my mind that anglers will win as anling is worth many times more than commercial fishing. But I feel it will not and should not be totaly stopped as this would be in a way tragic. Us anglers can lern a lot from the commercials, I now catch more fish through taking notes.

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Guest bennyTHEBASS

HERE IN CORNWALL ANYONE CAUGHT NETTING-TRAWLING APART FROM SANDEEL (OF WHICH YOU NEED PERMISSON) IN RIVER OR ESTURYS LOSE BOAT GEAR+VEHICLE BY LAW+FINE. ALL DEEP WATER HARBOURS+RIVERS ARE NERSERY GROUNDS

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