Fishing and Gear Technology

Unit-1 Introduction to fishing gear

1.2.Evolution of fishing gears
Before the invention of any fishing gear, men used their hands (hand picking) to catch fish and other aquatic organisms from the shallow water lakes, rivers and seas. However, it was only possible to collect sedentary, stranded slowly moving organisms by hand picking. To prevent the escape of fish, methods were developed to stun and stupefy the fish either mechanically or electrically. The capacity to capture live fish or the stupefied ones was limited by the length of the arm. To overcome this problem and to extend the range of the fisherman, spears or lances were developed. The reach of spears pushed by hand can be extended by using them as a casting gear. To prevent the fish from escaping the thrown gear, facilities for retrieving the catch are necessary which is characteristic of harpooning

The use of spears for catching fish implicates some injury to the prey. To catch delicate organisms without causing damage, a number of grasping instruments have been developed. Eg. clamps, tongs, rakes etc. These gears like the spearing and shooting gear have been developed to extend the range of the human arm and to secure the catch more efficiently.

Luring the fish with a bait and catching them led to the development of line fishing. The bait is presented in such a manner that the fish is neither able to take away the bait nor it can escape once it takes the bait. Various types of fishing lines have developed. The simplest form of fishing line is the hand line. The number of hand lines operated by a single man is limited. In order to operate more lines, set lines have been developed. From simple fishing lines capable of catching a single fish, long lines with thousands of hooks which extend to considerable length have been developed. The need to operate over a larger area using a movable fishing line led to the development of trolling lines.

Fishing with primitive gear is confined to shallow water areas. Permanent and semi permanent and barriers were erected in the areas with changing water level for catching fish. This is practiced in the areas of fresh waters and the ebb and flow areas along the sea coast. The barriers prevent fish from escaping when the water recedes. This was the beginning of filtering fishing gear.

After the invention of net making, netting made of fibers of different origin were used for gear construction. First, fishing gear was made of wooden material like sticks and flexible branches. There was a transition from wooden material to netting material in the construction of traps and barriers and bag nets. The bag nets are held open by means of a frame. Scoop nets, scrape nets and gape nets come under this category.

From the primitive rake, the development lead to the creation of the dredge. From the dredge first the dragged stow net and the trawl was developed. Trawling can be considered as further development of dredges. The desire to operate on wider areas and to catch more fish than was permitted by the maximum length of the frames of dredges led to the development of towing gear like trawls. With the advent of fish detecting devices and other electronic equipments, mid water trawls were developed to catch pelagic species.

Seine nets without bags have evolved from a net wall, while the seines with a bag developed from a bag net like stow nets. The desire to catch the shoaling fishes without allowing them to escape led to the evolution of surrounding nets. These gears are designed in such a way that they surround the fish shoal from below as well as sides to prevent their escape in any direction e.g. purse seines. On the same principle as scoop nets another type of gear called lift nets were developed which are dipped in water and then lifted as soon as the fish have gathered over them. The lift nets made of netting had their predecessors made of twigs and bast. Contrary to the lift nets, certain gears called falling gears secure their catch from above. Gears have been developed to catch high individual value fish without causing damage to them using the principle of gilling e.g. gill nets. Idea of catching fish by entangling them in water plants in earlier days led to the development of present day entangling nets like single, double, or triple walled (trammel) tangle nets.