A fishing net or fish net is a net used for fishing. Fishing nets work by serving as an improvised fish trap, and some are indeed rigged as traps (e.g. fyke nets). They are usually wide open when deployed (e.g. by casting or trawling), and then close off when retrieved to engulf and trap fish and other aquatic animals that are larger than the holes/gaps of the net, as well as many unwanted bycatches due to the underwater area a net can cover.

Fishing nets are usually meshes formed by knotting a relatively thin thread, and early nets were woven from grasses, vines, flaxes and other fiber crop material, while later woven cotton was used. Modern nets are usually made of artificial polyamides like nylon, although nets of organic polyamides such as wool or silk thread were common until recently and are still used.

History

Fishing nets have been used widely in the past, including by stone age societies. The oldest known fishing net is the net of Antrea, found with other fishing equipment in the Karelian town of Antrea, Finland, in 1913. The net was made from willow, and dates back to 8300 BC. Recently, fishing net sinkers from 27,000 BC were discovered in Korea, making them the oldest fishing implements discovered, to date, in the world. The remnants of another fishing net dates back to the late Mesolithic, and were found together with sinkers at the bottom of a former sea.Kriiska, Aivar (1996) "Stone age settlements in the lower reaches of the Narva River, north-eastern Estonia" Coastal Estonia: Recent Advances in Environmental and Cultural History. PACT 51. Rixensart. Pages 359–369.Indreko R (1932) "Kiviaja võrgujäänuste leid Narvas" (Stone Age find of fishing net remnants), in Eesti Rahva Muuseumi Aastaraamat VII, Tartu, pp. 48–67 (in Estonian). Some of the oldest rock carvings at Alta (4200–500 BC) have mysterious images, including intricate patterns of horizontal and vertical lines sometimes explained as fishing nets. American Native Indians on the Columbia River wove seine nets from spruce root fibers or wild grass, again using stones as weights. For floats they used sticks made of cedar which moved in a way which frightened the fish and helped keep them together.Smith, Courtland L Seine fishing Oregon Encyclopedia. Retrieved 23 March 2012. With the help of large canoes, pre-European Maori deployed seine nets which could be over one thousand metres long. The nets were woven from green flax, with stone weights and light wood or gourd floats, and could require hundreds of men to haul.Meredith, Paul "Te hī ika – Māori fishing" Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Updated 2 March 2009.

Fishing nets are well documented in antiquity. They appear in Egyptian tomb paintings from 3000 BC. In ancient Roman literature, Ovid makes many references to fishing nets, including the use of cork floats and lead weights.Radcliffe W (1926) Fishing from the Earliest Times John Murray, London.Johnson WM and Lavigne DM (1999) Monk Seals in Antiquity Fisheries, pp. 48–54. Netherlands Commission for International Nature Protection.Gilroy, Clinton G (1845) "The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances: including observations on spinning, dyeing and weaving" pp. 455–464. Harper & Brothers, Harvard University. Pictorial evidence of Roman fishing comes from mosaics which show nets.Image of fishing illustrated in a Roman mosaic . In a parody of fishing, a type of gladiator called retiarius was armed with a trident and a cast net. He would fight against a secutor or the murmillo, who carried a short sword and a helmet with the image of a fish on the front.Auguet, Roland (1994). Cruelty and Civilization: The Roman Games. London: Routledge. . Between 177 and 180 the Greek author Oppian wrote the Halieutica, a didactic poem about fishing. He described various means of fishing including the use of nets cast from boats, scoop nets held open by a hoop, and various traps "which work while their masters sleep". Here is Oppian's description of fishing with a "motionless" net: The fishers set up very light nets of buoyant flax and wheel in a circle round about while they violently strike the surface of the sea with their oars and make a din with sweeping blow of poles. At the flashing of the swift oars and the noise the fish bound in terror and rush into the bosom of the net which stands at rest, thinking it to be a shelter: foolish fishes which, frightened by a noise, enter the gates of doom. Then the fishers on either side hasten with the ropes to draw the net ashore.

In Norse mythology the sea giantess Rán uses a fishing net to trap lost sailors. References to fishing nets can also be found in the New Testament.Luke 5:4-6; John 21:3-7a Jesus Christ was reputedly a master in the use of fishing nets. The tough, fibrous inner bark of the pawpaw was used by Native Americans and settlers in the Midwest for making ropes and fishing nets. The archaeological site at León Viejo (1524–1610) has fishing net artifacts including fragments of pottery used as weights for fishing nets.

Fishing nets have not evolved greatly, and many contemporary fishing nets would be recognized for what they are in Neolithic times. However, the fishing lines from which the nets are constructed have hugely evolved. Fossilised fragments of "probably two-ply laid rope of about 7 mm diameter" have been found in one of the caves at Lascaux, dated about 15,000 BC.J.C. Turner and P. van de Griend (ed.), The History and Science of Knots (Singapore: World Scientific, 1996), 14. Egyptian rope dates back to 4000 to 3500 BC and was generally made of water reed fibers. Other rope in antiquity was made from the fibers of date palms, flax, grass, papyrus, leather, or animal hair. Rope made of hemp fibres was in use in China from about 2800 BC.

In modern times, hemp was almost the only material in large scale use in fishing gear until 1900 when it found competition from cotton. By 1950s cotton had taken over a large fraction of fishing nets, although hemp nets were still in use in large quantities. The first nylon fishing nets emerged in Japan in 1949 (although tests of similar equipment were taking place around the world in the last years of the 1940s). In the 1950s they were adopted worldwide, replacing nets made from cotton or hemp that were used before. The introduction of synthetic fibres in fishing gear from around 1950 changed a way of using natural materials that goes back several thousands of years. In the following decades (for example in Norway in 1975, 95% of all fishing gear was made of synthetic fibre), the new synthetic materials conquered the hegemony in net fishing.Martinussen, Atle Ove (2006) "Nylon Fever: Technological Innovation, Diffusion and Control in Norwegian Fishery during the 1950s" MAST, 5(1): 29–44.

Fishing nets in the past

Types

Type Image Target fish Description Environmental impact Bottom trawl Demersal fish such as groundfish, cod, squid, halibut and rockfish A trawl is a large net, conical in shape, designed to be towed along the sea bottom. The trawl is pulled through the water by one or more boats, called trawlers or draggers. The activity of pulling the trawl through the water is called trawling or dragging. Bottom trawling results in a lot of bycatch and can damage the sea floor. A single pass along the seafloor can remove 5 to 25% of the seabed life. A 2005 report of the UN Millennium Project, commissioned by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, recommended the elimination of bottom trawling on the high seas by 2006 to protect seamounts and other ecologically sensitive habitats. In mid-October 2006, US President Bush joined other world leaders calling for a moratorium on deep-sea trawling. Cast net Schooling and other small fish Cast nets (throw nets) are small round nets with weights on the edges which are thrown by the fisher. Sizes vary up to about four metres in diameter. The net is thrown by hand in such a manner that it spreads out on the water and sinks. Fish are caught as the net is hauled back in.Casting net . High discrimination possible. Non targeted fish can be released unharmed. Coracle net fishing Coracle fishing is performed by two people, each seated in a coracle, plying their paddle with one hand and holding a shared net with the other. When a fish is caught, each hauls up their end of the net until the two coracles are brought to touch and the fish is secured. This is a general term which can be applied to any net which is dragged or hauled across a river or along the bottom of a lake or sea. An example is the seine net shown in the image. The fishing depth of this net can be adjusted by adding weights to the bottom. Beach seineSchooling fish in shallow coastal watersA beach seine is a long net deployed from shore and hauled back by a group of fishers standing in shallow water. The technique encircles fish as the net is gradually pulled toward the beach. It is widely used by small coastal communities for subsistence and artisanal fishing.