Tray Traz-Os-Montes
TRAY TRAZ-OS-MONTES In another modification the net is supported on the stakes, which is some 200 ft. long, does not act as a gill net but as a " leader, " _ . . and one of its ends passes through a narrow opening i' ? v< ' nto a circular enclosure surrounded by a similar e "'wall of staked netting. The bag net and fly net for the capture of the salmon are merely elaborated forms of this type. The pound is roofed by netting, in the fly net, and in the bag net, which is floated not staked floored also. It is wedge-shaped, narrowing gradually from the entrance end, and divided incompletely by oblique internal walls or valves of netting into side compartments.
The bag net just described is practically a floating stake net. A simpler form is used in the Elbe, consisting of a pyramidal net Stow Nets whose mout h is held open by its sides being attached to spars, weighted at one end and buoyed at the other. This is the simplest form of stow net. The stow net is used in the Thames and Wash ; it is specially designed for the capture of sprats, although many young herrings are sometimes caught, and it is worked most extensively at the entrance of the Thames. The stow net is a gigantic funnel-shaped bag having nearly a square mouth, 30 ft. from the upper to the lower side, and 21 ft. wide. It tapers for a length of about 90 ft. to a diameter of 5 or 6 ft., and further diminishes to about half that size for another 90 ft. to the end of the net. The whole net is therefore about iSoft. or 60 yards long. The upper and lower sides of the square mouth are kept extended by two horizontal wooden spars called " balks," and the lower one is weighted so as to open the mouth of the net in a perpendicular direction when it is at work. The size of the meshes varies from if in. near the mouth to i in. towards the end, where, however, it is again slightly enlarged to allow for the greater pressure of the water at that part. The mode of working the net is very simple. Oyster smacks are commonly used in this fishery, although shrimping boats are also employed in it in the Thames. The smack takes up a position at the first of the tide where there are signs of fish, or in such parts of the estuary as are frequented by the sprats during that part of the season; she then anchors, and at the same moment the net is put overboard and so handled that it at once takes its proper position, which is under the vessel. It is kept there by a very simple arrangement. Four ropes leading, one from each end of the two balks, and therefore from the four corners of the mouth of the net, are united at some little distance in front, forming a double bridle, and a single mooring rope leads from this point of union to the vessel's anchor; so that the same anchor holds both the vessel and the net. The net is kept at any desired distance from the bottom by means of two ropes, one from each end of the upper balk to the corresponding side of the smack, where it is made fast. The open mouth of the net is thus kept suspended below the vessel, and the long mass of netting streams away astern with the tide. The strain of this immense bag-net by the force of the tide is often very great, but if the vessel drags her anchor, the net being made fast to the same mooring, both keep their relative positions. Here they remain for several hours till the tide slackens, the vessel's sails being all taken in and only one hand being left on deck to keep watch. The way in which the fish are caught hardly requires explanation. The sprats, swimming in immense shoals, are carried by the tide into the open mouth of the net and then on to the small end, where they are collected in enormous numbers; from this there is no escape, as the crowd is constantly increasing, and they cannot stem the strong tide setting into the net. The first thing to be done in taking in the net is to close the mouth, and this is effected by means of a chain leading from the bow of the vessel through an iron loop in the middle of the upper balk down to the centre of the lower one, and by heaving in this chain the two balks are brought together and ultimately hoisted out of the water under the vessel's bowsprit. The net is then brought alongside and overhauled till the end is reached, and this is hoisted on board. The rope by which it is closed having been cast off, the sprats are then measured into the hold of the vessel by about three bushels at a time, until the net has been emptied. The quantity of sprats taken in this manner by many scores of fishing craft during the season, which lasts from November to February, is in some years simply enormous; the markets at Billingsgate and elsewhere are inundated with them, and at last in many years they can only be disposed of at a nominal price for manure; and in this way many hundreds of tons are got rid of. The stow boats do not generally take their fish on shore, but market boats come off to them and buy the fish out of the vessel's hold, and carry it away. The mode of working is the same in the Solent and the Wash as that we have described in the Thames and large quantities of sprats are landed by the Southampton boats.
" Whitebait," or young sprats, mixed with some young herring and other small fish, are caught in the Thames by a net which is practically nothing else but a very small stow net, and it is worked in essentially the same manner. An interesting form of stow net is used in the Channels of the Frisian Island, chiefly during the rush of the ebb-tide, for the capture of rays (principally Raja clavata, the Thornback) which are highly valued by the Dutch. It consists of a net shaped like an otter trawl, furnished with otter boards, which are attached to ropes passed to the ends of long booms which project from the sides of the vessel using the net, and also to the two anchors by which the former is anchored.
The remaining stationary nets to be mentioned partake of the nature of traps. The trammel net consists of three nets joined together at the top, bottom and sides. The whole T system of nets hangs vertical, the head line being J a t m buoyed and the ground line weighted. The two outer "'** nets are much smaller than the inner net, but of wide-meshed netting, whereas the inner net is of very small mesh. Consequently, a fish meeting an outer net passes through it, strikes the fine-meshed net and forces it before it through one of the meshes of the farther wide-meshed net; it is thus in a small pocket from which it cannot escape.
The hose net is a long cylindrical net from which trap-like pockets open. The main cavity is kept open by rigid rings. The hose nets are set between tide marks, at low water, so that the tide runs through them; and they are emptied at Hose Net. next low tide.
While unimportant compared with the huge quantity of fish landed from sea-going vessels, the catch of the ip-shore nets described is of importance in respect of the kinds of fish taken, whitebait and pilchards, for instance, being not otherwise obtained, while salmon, though taken in rivers as well as in estuaries and along the coast, is very rarely captured at sea.
AUTHORITIES. Brabazon, The Deep-Sea and Coast Fisheries of Ireland (1848); Holdsworth, Deep-Sea Fishing and Fishing Boats (London, 1874); Z. L. Tanner, Bulletin United States Fishery Commission (1896), vol. xvi.; Garstang, ibid., vol. vi.; Kyle, Journal of the Marine^ Biological Association of the United Kingdom, new series, vol. vi. (London); Cunningham, ibid., vol. iv. ; Petersen, Report of the Danish Biological Association, vol. viii. (Copenhagen, 1899) ; Hjort, Report on Norwegian Fisliery and Marine Investigation, vol. i. (Christiania, 1900); Mittheilungen- Deutscher SeefischerVerein, various numbers; Fulton, Reports of the Scottish Fishery Board, igth Report (1900); and in other numbers; Report and Minutes of Evidence of the Committee, " appointed to inquire into the scientific and statistical investigations now being carried on in relation to the fishing industry of the United Kingdom." (London 1908). (J. O. B.)
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
