A Perilous Catch

by Mike Smylie

  This may present a false picture that the life of hunter-gatherers was a simple one – the truth is the opposite. It was a strenuous and hard life, with the added conflict between tribes, and roving bandits who were always keen for a free meal and not concerned about the value of human life. History is full of tales of death and destruction, and fishers were not exempt.

  The excavations of shell middens on the island of Oronsay, Inner Hebrides produced much information about the gathering of food from the foreshore. Bevel-headed antler, bone and stone tools found in large numbers have been interpreted as ‘limpet hammers’ or ‘limpet scoops’. However, other archaeologists think they were tools for softening skin hides as some show signs of rubbing, polishing and abrasion. Moreover, they also found barbed pots and harpoons which were probably used for the procurement of marine animals and large fish using hand- or long-lining. The most common species of fish found in the middens was wrasse, saithe (coley) and ling which were probably caught using nets or spears.

  As time went by, fishing techniques have improved. Fishing without gear – just hands and feet – then led to the development of fishing tools such as knives, spears and long-handled hooks. Divers used such hooks for loosening shells and hooking octopus. There are a number of finds in Scotland that point strongly to the development of deep-sea fishing during the late Mesolithic period. At a midden on the tiny island of Risga, in the mouth of Loch Sunart, bones of various sea fish were found, including skate, conger eel, grey mullet and haddock, indicating the use of a boat for line-fishing or netting.

  Over the centuries all manner of methods have been used for catching fish. These include the use of animals such as dogs, otters, cormorants, turtles, octopi and porpoises, using mechanical ways of stupefying fish such as dynamite, toxic plants, clamps and rakes, and electrical fishing. Shooting, spearing and harpooning were ways of capturing fish, especially after it was discovered that light attracted fish.5 In many parts of the world today bright lights are shone into the water to bring the fish to the surface before they are netted. Few visitors to Southern Europe will have failed to see small open Mediterranean craft sitting on beaches fitted with big lamps.

  But we must return to Britain in our discussion with regard to the more common fishing methods and, first and foremost, are fish weirs and traps.

  Fish Weirs

  Fish weirs are barriers that are referred to as ‘fixed engines’. Documented evidence of weirs is scarce though three traps excavated at the Late Kongemose site Agerod V in southern Sweden are said to date back more than 6,000 years. Another, at the Ertebolle site of Jonstorp, still contained a cod and several have relatively recently been excavated in Denmark that date from the Mesolithic and Neolithic times.6 In Britain various fishing baskets and fish traps at Goldcliff, in the River Severn estuary, have been observed in the minerogenic sediments and date to around 5400–4000 cal BC.7 Many others have been established for hundreds of years. Indeed, as F.M. Davis recounts, ‘the first settlers in Queensland, some of whom lived much among the then Blackfellows, have left very full descriptions of the stone-weirs used by these primitive people who were still in the Stone Age of culture’.8 The same he says of the Indians of Virginia who developed ‘great fish weirs and fish pounds’. Davis also suggests that it is not improbable that the earliest method of fishing in any quantity was by stopping the mouths of narrow tidal creeks with brushwood or stones but when it was discovered that this also blocked the ingress of fish, the weir was developed by forming an opening that could be closed on the ebb. Davis gives the ‘Fish-ponds’ of south Devon as an example. In the Outer Hebrides:

  one method of catching fish which was once common was by building yares or stone dykes across a river estuary. The fish that swim in at high tide when the yare was submerged were left stranded when the tide ebbed, and could be collected without much trouble.9

  As has been mentioned previously, fish weirs are only capable of working effectively in tidal waters and Britain has the remains of many littered around its coast, especially on the western side of Scotland, England and Wales. These weirs were positioned in such a way that they used the natural swimming behaviour of fish that in shallow flowing water tend to swim parallel to the coastline. On the flood many tend to swim towards the shore and away on the ebb. Thus, as the tide recedes, the entrance should be behind the fish. They were generally constructed with stout oak posts bedded into the foreshore with stone walls built up for the first foot or two, and then hazel or willow was used to weave a framework which allowed a flow of seawater to pass. The weave was more tightly woven at the bottom to prevent fish escaping and looser at the top, thus ensuring the greater flow at the higher level of tide passed through without damaging the structure, for the pressure of water can be immense. Some weirs had intricate openings at their mouths with sluices so that these mouths could be opened or shut. The gorad bach – literally little weir – on the Menai Strait in North Wales has a ‘bass trap’ which is a little sluice that could be opened to let whitebait out (a common fish in these parts). Bigger fish such as salmon and bass tended to linger outside awaiting a tasty meal – the owners of the weir, John and Wilf Girling, would wait above with a lap-net to catch the unsuspecting salmon or bass. This weir, along with another larger one a mile to the east called the Trecastell weir, date back several centuries and were very effective at catching all manner of fish: herring, whitebait, salmon, mackerel, bass and even the green-boned garfish. In shape they were the same and consisted of a wall running at right angles to the shore, and out to the low water mark, and then another along the low water mark perpendicular to the first. At the right-hand end, looking from the shore, the end that faces the ebb, a short wall runs back on itself at a sharp angle, thus forming the ‘crew’ where the fish were unable to escape. The gorad bach was in use until the 1960s and the owners then only packed up as it was obvious that the seagulls and bait diggers were having more of the catch than they were! Another weir in this area, called the lyme-kiln, was leased to Thomas Norrey in 1438 for twenty years while Thomas Sherwin paid a rent of sixpence a year ten years later for another said to be ‘lying between the lyme-kiln fishery and the house of the Friar Minor of Llanfaes’. Given that the gored bach is in the vicinity of Llanfaes, it could be assumed that the report refers to this weir.10

  The Menai Strait had several other fish weirs and one in particular was restored in recent times. Current regulations ban their use so this one has holes in the restored wall that allow any fish to escape. Situated on the small island between the two bridges over the Menai Strait, the weir can be studied from above and if the tide is high, the shape of the weir can clearly be seen. Another used to be worked on the island – the remains are still visible – and the remnants of two others can be found nearby on the Anglesey shore. One of these two uses the method of building a barrier between two islands so that the fish can pass around the outside of the island and towards the shore on the flood, but are then are caught when trying to make their way between the islands on the ebb. Further northeast, there is the outline of another at Cadnant clearly visible in the mud at low water. Another used to lie across the Straits on the Bangor side, a vague remnant still visible with the tide out.

  John Girling Snr with a landing net full of whitebait in his fish weir, the gorad bach, near Beaumaris, Anglesey. The weir is said to date back to medieval times. (Courtesy of Bridget Dempsey)

  Weirs follow various patterns and an attempt has been made to classify them as to whether they are active or passive. Again the shape is important, for a couple on the west coast of Wales are crescent shaped – described by one writer as ‘somewhat shaped as a boomerang’.11 Others are V-shaped often with several side by side and a net of some form across the neck where the fish are caught. But in reality they come in all shapes and sizes. As I write this, the family are watching a programme on television and suddenly there’s a mention of fish traps. I stop and listen to hear how dolphins are trapping fish in a manoeuvring technique sim
ilar in some ways to these structures. And a very successful technique it is, as fish after fish flop into their jaws. Maybe, then, the development of fish weirs simply came about by watching closely the ways of the creatures that inhabit the seas.

  Fish Traps

  Various forms of fish traps have been in use since prehistoric times, albeit in a different, possibly updated, form. The best example is perhaps the octopus clay pot mentioned above. Just as lobster, crab, eel and whelk are caught using pots – or creels as they call them in Scotland – today, so were they many years ago. However, throughout the world small-scale fishermen have developed various shaped baskets used as traps, made from an equal variety of material – willow, hazel, bamboo, reeds, rattan and palm leaves. Some are very basic structures while others consist of an intricate weave of materials.

  Fish traps do not simply have to be in a basket form and can be man-made structures placed across the current in a river and here, it could be said, there is little difference between a fish weir and a fish trap. However, there is one very important dissimilarity in that weirs are fixed engines while fish traps can be removed and placed elsewhere. One example of this is the Wing trap from the Mekong River in Laos. At the Khone Falls these structures are used between May and July to catch migrating fish moving upstream. When fish reach the falls they are held in the trap by the strong current.12

  Such structures also occur in Britain, most notably in the River Severn. Putts and putchers are basketwork traps set into frameworks of stakes placed across the flow of the river, the difference between the two being the size. The putcher is the smallest at about 5 or 6ft in length and is a cone-shaped woven basket of willow and hazel. Putchers are mounted in the framework in tiers of three or four, up to thirty or forty along (or more even), giving a total of several hundred. They normally face upstream, thus catching the fish as they swim down on the ebb though occasionally they might face downstream. Once a fish swims into the trap there is no way out. Once the short fishing season is over (June to August), then the putchers have to be removed and taken ashore.

  Putts are altogether much bigger and are made up of three integral parts – the kype, butt and forewheel. They work the same way as the putchers and always face upstream. The entrance to the trap, the kype, can be as big as 6ft in diameter and the whole putt up to 14ft in length. They have to be closed to salmon out of season and this is done by driving two lengths of willow cross-wise through the rear of the kype where it joins the butt. Salmon cannot then get in but other fish and eels can still be fished. Putts are thought to go back to the fifteenth century and possible even as far as the tenth.13

  In Greece fish traps were positioned in rivers. Recently I met a fisherman named Kostas Giotis who made one that he called a silpi in Greek. Made from local reeds, it is some 6ft long and 2ft wide. It looks a bit like a conical basket that has been split longitudinally so that the mouth is flat, though the tip of the cone is still in place. The trap sits in the river and stones are moved to act as a hedge to lead the fish into it. They get stuck in the tip, unable to swim backwards against the current. This he used when the river was in flood in March, with the snows melting and filling the River Sperheios, in central Greece. Mostly set at night and emptied the next morning, sometimes he would sit by river spearing or stringing fish with worms, the latter used for jigging so that when a fish bites the string is flicked downstream and towards the bank to land the fish. Just after the war, he informed me, they were using grenades to fish with too, as well as poisons. With regard to the latter Aristotle mentions fleabane to make octopi drop off rocks. Mullien was used and continued in use into the twentieth century, as was fleabane. Cyclamen is mentioned by ancient writers as a poison for catching tuna and mullet.

  Gorges and Hooks

  Although we have mentioned hooks from the Bronze Age, gorges are believed to predate hooks as the method of ensuring a fish doesn’t get away after eating the bait on a line and have been in use since the Palaeolithic period. The earliest form of gorge was a straight or slightly curved piece of wood, sharpened at both ends and tied to the line in the middle. It was then inserted lengthways into the bait and is swallowed by that fish so that when the line is tightened it turns transversely inside the belly or throat and cannot be spat out. Gorges are also used for catching birds and similar devices are used for catching crocodiles. Gorges were also made from bone, horn, flint and metal.

  Gorges do work, as we once discovered while filming for the BBC for a programme called The Truth about Food. I’d made a couple out of thin branches as part of a demonstration on archaeological fishing methods and was fishing with the camera crew and participants a few miles off Dartmouth. On one side we made rods with modern fishing gear and on the other side a gorge and a hook made from a rose thorn. To our surprise a fish took the gorge but, to our dismay, the line broke while pulling it in. However, the rose thorn hook, although I felt one fish having a nibble, didn’t catch anything. Meanwhile on the other side of the boat the participants were reeling in the mackerel!

  Hooks come in all manner of shapes and sizes, made from a number of materials such as bronze, copper, thorn, bone, antler, ceramic and later iron. Indeed, according to J. Bickerdyke, the thorn hooks mentioned earlier were still in use in parts of the Thames estuary up to 1895.14 Early hooks didn’t have a barb and proved much more ineffectual then those with. Among the fishing collections of the world are beautiful hooks made from mother-of-pearl, tortoiseshell, whalebone and human bones, and these remained treasured artefacts from an era when fishermen took great pride in their gear. Today steel hooks are mass-produced in the same way as their nets, lines and ropes are.

  Hooks can be used in a multitude of ways: either singly on hand lines; set on paternosters, again for hand lines; set on feathers for trolling; for multi-line trolling; on spinning hooks for mackerel; fixed into lures for hand lines; and long lines.

  Long lines are made up are hundreds of hooks which are tied to ‘snoods’, short pieces of horsehair, which are in turn tied to the line itself, the snoods being about a foot apart. Long-lining has been described as the simplest method of commercial fishing though its downside was the baiting of the hook which took hours, even after spending time catching the bait. Then, once they were set – another time-consuming labour – they had to be hauled in without getting all the hooks stuck into the side of the boat (or fingers and other parts of the anatomy). In time mechanisation brought about much longer lines that were hauled in with the use of hydraulic winches and, for larger craft, systems were designed for casting lines out. However, we are now in the realms of large-scale commercial fishing, a place we do not want to be in at present.

  Nets

  Remains of nets have been found at Herculaneum and in Egypt, though because all nets (until recently) were made from organic material, only tiny bits have survived. As we’ve seen, only implements made from inorganic materials have been discovered on the whole. It is believed that in early times fishing with nets was only from the shore with beach seine-nets, as the Kynos and Naxos depictions suggest.

  Nets were made from plant fibre and, according to Oppian, ‘very light nets of buoyant flax’ were used for tuna fishing. He added that ‘they wheel round in a circle round about while they violently strike the surface of the sea with their oars and make a din with the sweeping blow of poles’.15 The fish are frightened and chased into the net. Also a man used to be positioned in a watchtower to search out and point the boats to a shoal. Part of a net was also found at Nikonion, an ancient (600–300 BC) Greek city on the east bank of the River Dniester estuary in modern-day Ukraine, while a fragment of a net discovered was found to be hemp.

  Although various natural fibres could be used – flax, willow, lime, jute, sisal, iris, coir seed, Cretan lily leaf – by far the most common material that would have all the necessary qualities for use as lines and for nets is nettle-hemp. The nettles would be gathered in spring and early summer, the leaves stripped off the stems and the stems immer
sed in water for several hours. After removal from the water, they would be pulped so that the individual strands would peel away producing long, thin fibres. These fibres would then be spun in the same way as flax and wool, the resulting ‘yarn’ would then be used for the lines, to make nets and also for the strings of bows. Hemp was considered too rough and used for ropes.

  Floats were made from cork, wood, pumice, pieces of bark, goats’ wool and sealed containers. Sinkers, as mentioned earlier, were perforated sherds, or stones with natural indentations, lead wrapped around a line, clay wrapped around sticks and fired and terracotta flat discs with two holes at the top. Weights used in weaving were also sometimes used.

  Notes

  1 F. Dakronia and P. Kounouklas, ‘Fishing Technology: The Kynos Contribution’, unpublished report.

  2 William Radcliffe, Fishing from the Earliest Times, London, 1921.

  3 See Mike Smylie, ‘Octopus Pots’, Maritime Life & Traditions no. 31, 2006.