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All I ever used was fiberglass hoops. Some people like steel hoops, but they don't fish well. They are much to heavy and fall down in the river if the current drops off much. You must understand that I had to make a living for my family in the off months. I had to have an income when I wasn't buying fur or roots in the summer months. Fishing made me around 800 to 1000 a week from April to November. I sold spoon bill cavier in early spring and late fall.
Re: Mud turtle trap Pictoral . How to make net throats
[Re: Wolfdog91]
#5712669 11/27/1609:02 AM11/27/1609:02 AM
All I ever used was fiberglass hoops. Some people like steel hoops, but they don't fish well. They are much to heavy and fall down in the river if the current drops off much. You must understand that I had to make a living for my family in the off months. I had to have an income when I wasn't buying fur or roots in the summer months. Fishing made me around 800 to 1000 a week from April to November. I sold spoon bill cavier in early spring and late fall.
Sir I'll tell ya your a wealth of info on this subject ! Ever consider writing a book ?
Re: Mud turtle trap Pictoral . How to make net throats
[Re: Wolfdog91]
#5713456 11/27/1610:17 PM11/27/1610:17 PM
All I ever used was fiberglass hoops. Some people like steel hoops, but they don't fish well. They are much to heavy and fall down in the river if the current drops off much. You must understand that I had to make a living for my family in the off months. I had to have an income when I wasn't buying fur or roots in the summer months. Fishing made me around 800 to 1000 a week from April to November. I sold spoon bill cavier in early spring and late fall.
Sir I'll tell ya your a wealth of info on this subject ! Ever consider writing a book ?
The thought had passed my mind, but don't know if I could stay interested long enough to do such a thing.
Re: Mud turtle trap Pictoral . How to make net throats
[Re: Wolfdog91]
#6153708 02/10/1804:21 PM02/10/1804:21 PM
The best way to learn how to build nets is to keep quiet and watch what a hanger is doing. After a while you will be making them.and when you see a net you should start counting and get a copy of the net. A good hanger can then change it up to his likes.
Re: Mud turtle trap Pictoral . How to make net throats
[Re: Wolfdog91]
#6250252 05/30/1802:31 AM05/30/1802:31 AM
Wolfdog, if you ever get near Evansville Ind. give me a holler. I can show you several nets of different sizes and some Gill Nets I made. Like the man just posted a couple post back, all you need to do is bring a note book and start counting. I will help you understand what your seeing and how many rows of mesh need to be sewn in a row then when and how to take up your mesh so you start reducing the diameter and then how to sew the mesh together and how to make a crows foot throat with all the strings tied to their respective throats and how to lace it all together so it is symmetrical. Come see me young man, looks like you might be one of the men in this world that wants to carry on the true art of net making.
Re: Mud turtle trap Pictoral . How to make net throats
[Re: don Wolf]
#6989250 09/13/2008:56 AM09/13/2008:56 AM
The Crows foot throat and a finger throat are the same. I make all my throats and the cage out of #9. I hang my rear throat with a main line of # 12. I also use #12 for the main line going to the 4th hoop. I like #9 because it isn't as heavy as # 15 and also if you use it on the cage part it makes the cage to dark. Be sure to start taking up your mesh once you get to around 6 or full mesh. On my 7th row of full mesh, I start taking up every second mesh, then after I get that done I knit one more row of every second mesh then on the 8th row I start taking up every other mesh. This makes your throats come out pretty small but the nice thing about building the throat the way I build them, they will catch any size fish the enters past the first throat that is hung on the second hoop. The throat looks to small but it will expand easy when a fish enters. I build my first throat just about the same way but make the throat shorter in length. The throat mainline on the first throat is tied to the 4th hoop. When the first throat is finished it will have a good deal more open type look to it. The idea of this is for the front of the net to look more open and that makes fish enter a lot easier. Once the fish is inside the net between the second a fourth hoop he will automatically start to swim upstream, especially if your net is baited. I prefer cheese bait myself but some folks use cotton seed cake. Cheese will put cotton seed cake to shame when it comes to feeding on the bait sack. Anytime I catch an eggy fish I will leave her in the net to feed on the Cheese. From the combination of her feeding the cheese bag and having a hormonal fit, it causes your net to load up with catfish. If your wanting to catch Hyfin, carp or Buffalo, use cotton seed cake, it is the best bait you can get for those particular fish. I usually use between 5 to 8 pounds of cheese per bait bag.
Originally Posted by don Wolf
I inch square two inch stretch. That is also for a 2 ft. fiddler net. I start with 59 mesh in the flat out measurement them when I lace it up, it has 60 total mesh around the net. I made these nets a little over 7 ft. long. I of course put a hoop on the very front of the net and then, if I remember correct I put my second hoop at 10 mesh long and third hoop at 10 more mesh long. I hang my first throat on the 2nd hoop and my second throat on the fourth hoop. That is coming from the head of the net. The tail of the net or what is the smaller end faces up stream so the water flows over the net from tail to head. Understand it has been over 20 years since I built and sold nets and also used my own nets that I would build. I think if I remember correct the amount of mesh was 70 mesh stretch from head to tail. Understand I might be off a little on my figures. I used fiber glass hoops and would balance all my hoops so the heavy side was always on the bottom of the net that sat on the river bed. If you don't balance your hoops, they will be rolling all around on the river bottom. You want a net to lay flat and straight on the river bed. If a net is constantly moving from side to side, you not catch many fish in the net. I would always use a set of sharp calipers to get the exact measurement of where my net was laced into my hoops. If you don't keep your hoop lacing in a common pattern, it will also cause a net to walk on the river bottom. There is a lot more that meets the eye when building a good commercial fishing net. When you do this for a living, you make sure you get your nets built in a good manner. It will mean the difference of catching 10, or 12 catfish to a net or catch a couple hundred to as much as 3 to 400 fish in a single net. I used to only have to run 10 hoop nets and 3 or 4 gill nets for bigger fish to make my days wages.
A lot of valuable information in these posts
Re: Mud turtle trap Pictoral . How to make net throats
[Re: Wolfdog91]
#6989272 09/13/2009:24 AM09/13/2009:24 AM
My son is about your age and I sure wish he braided his own nets instead of everyone's bull ropes and bronc reigns. Your work areas look compact and neat. His not so much. What he makes don't look that long but when he starts out his crap would go all over the house b/c the individual strands would be 80 to 100 ft. Tripping and tangling in his messes almost made me miss Legos and Lincoln Logs (almost)
“What’s good for me may not be good for the weak minded.” Captain Gus McCrae- Texas Rangers
Re: Mud turtle trap Pictoral . How to make net throats
[Re: Wolfdog91]
#6989436 09/13/2012:40 PM09/13/2012:40 PM
So Wolfie, you definitely have some net working skills, I can tell by how you're using your tools and fingers. I have a couple of questions: Can you make money in your part of the Country by putting those skills into use? Do you catch turtles and whatever else just for you own use, or is there a commercial market for the stuff you catch? I hope you find a way to capitalize on your skills. I really doubt you would want to move away from your part of the Country, but you might enjoy a season or two checking out some net fisheries in other parts of the Country. I'm attaching a Youtube video of an interesting fishery that occurs in Washington State, There are only about eight of the Lummi Island Reef netters in existence, a very complicated net fishery, but pretty interesting. I kind of prefer a higher volume, lower tech fishing like gill netting. Maybe you'd like to visit (work) in the Alaska Bristol Bay fishery for a few weeks some summer, I think you'd really enjoy it.
"My life is better than your vacation"
Re: Mud turtle trap Pictoral . How to make net throats
[Re: waggler]
#6990647 09/14/2008:00 PM09/14/2008:00 PM
So Wolfie, you definitely have some net working skills, I can tell by how you're using your tools and fingers. I have a couple of questions: Can you make money in your part of the Country by putting those skills into use? Do you catch turtles and whatever else just for you own use, or is there a commercial market for the stuff you catch? I hope you find a way to capitalize on your skills. I really doubt you would want to move away from your part of the Country, but you might enjoy a season or two checking out some net fisheries in other parts of the Country. I'm attaching a Youtube video of an interesting fishery that occurs in Washington State, There are only about eight of the Lummi Island Reef netters in existence, a very complicated net fishery, but pretty interesting. I kind of prefer a higher volume, lower tech fishing like gill netting. Maybe you'd like to visit (work) in the Alaska Bristol Bay fishery for a few weeks some summer, I think you'd really enjoy it.
Honestly I haven't put a ton of thought into making money without net making, like slot of things I do it's something I kind of do for therapy. No commercial market for turtles in my state due to game laws and I d OK my yard access to a good enough water way currently to make money off of fish nor do I have the skills yet. And yes it is on the bucket list to travel around a little and work with some others when it comes to fishing and net making.