Another question in Gill Nets

Ok so another question and many thanks to those who helped with the last one.
Basically with the mono netting wanted to know if somone could help me understand the various sizes.
Like in relation to say 10lbs test mono fishing line how big are the various mono netting line sizes ?
Like is a No.6 (139) size mono net made of somthing that's basically six pound test fishing line ? Really wish they sold a sample chart or somthing of all the twine and mono sizes lol.
Anyhow any help would be appreciated

You may want to post this over on the Wilderness trapping and Living side also I'm sure someone maybe Yukon Jeff could help you out with your questions.

Wolfie:

These guys have always been very helpful over the years. Give them a call and ask your questions. We can't use mono gill netting. Has to be multifiliment.

https://www.mydigitalpublication.com/publication/?i=381104#{%22issue_id%22:381104,%22publication_id%22:%2245045%22,%22page%22:2}https://www.mydigitalpublication.co...lication_id%22:%2245045%22,%22page%22:2}

Yea , sorry we cant use Mono here. If that's Memphis Net and Twine, try give them a call. They should be able to help you order. I ordered from them years ago.

If multi-twist (multiple strands of mono) will work for your application I would consider using it over mono. It is much more durable.

Isn't the breaking strength given in those charts? comparing to fishing line isn't completely comparable, the knots reduce the breaking strength of the twine itself, I'd call Memphis they should be able to tell you what the breaking strength is

picking a twine size is a balancing act ,it has to be strong enough for the targeted fish, yet not be too heavy for visibility. trashy water would need a heavier twine, smaller fish can use a lighter, smaller mesh size.

If you have a targeted fish, size, and area in mind, any net maker should be able to reccommend the appropriate mesh and twine.

Just call the Co. and talk with them, there are many factors when buying nets.

Well the only reason I haven't and made this post if because I think it would be a good thing to have this in print here for others.

Well it's not really the breaking strength im intrested in more or less the size . See I'm one of those type I kinda need somthing in my hands to gauge it or have it compared to somthing I'm around alot.
Like if you tell me a No.6 netting is made of 30mm dia mono I'm honestly pretty lost. But if you say it's basically 8lbs test mono fishing line then yeah it makes perfect sense to me . Like i can dig in my tackle box and dibd some 8lbs test and there it is.

We just kinda hoping somone could possibly break that down like that for me and other who might be curious

Wolfie. If you look at the link I posted you will see that each size of filament is given in MM. #6 mono is .40mm. So if you have some mono that you know the break test on, measure it with a micrometer to get an idea of the diameter of the filament. Extrapolate from there

If you call the net company and talk with lee he is the man that will be able to answer question.

Hmmmm never considered that. Ill be sure to try it next time I'm at the house ,thanks !

Always set according to mesh size. Depth was expressed as the number of meshes bottom to top. Small mesh was typically 2 3/4” and large mesh was 6”. Large was for flounder. Small was mostly for crab bait.

OP if you look in the netting section you will see the chart for mono size and breaking strength. There should be both a dry and wet breaking strength.
I’ll go see if I can find a catalog and get a picture for you.

Wolfdog91 is that a Louisiana Fish Net Company or MemphisNetandTwine catalog? I have bought a lot from both and should have a catalog somewhere.
I went from using clear mono to using multi strand I got from Seattle Marine. You could order the mesh already cut to length and depth. Also you could get the mesh in many different colors.

Wolfie the break chart is in the picture above. It’s the small box

Wolfie what fish are you wanting to net?

What sizes are you considering for your target catch? PM me your address and I can mail you a sample before you buy. I have 104, 139, 177, 208, and #30. As a rule of thumb, the smaller diameter nets are softer, stickier, catch great but meshes pop easily. If the water is cold, these nets will catch better because the mono will tend to get stiff. I switched to multi strand for perch because I start when the water is still in the 50’s. Larger diameter nets allow you to be harder on them, shake fish out without popping meshes. I like 208 for bunker for this reason (menhaden). Lots of fish, heavy nets, shake em out. Gotta find a net size that works for your target specie, water temp and method of fishing.

John

I'm just curious how often you guys strip your web and rehang your nets?
I usually get two seasons, that's about a maximum of 40 days fishing time, and about 80-100 pounds of salmon. The web is looking pretty beat up by then. My net is 300 feet long and 29 meshes deep, I like #73 multi strand.

Well it's varying ,anything from bait sized sunfish to carp honestly. Really I'm trying to get a good general grasp on what all the different mono netting is so j can tailor stuff to what I need. Like I have a good grasp on time sizes but that's just because I've bought so much twine and netting . Mono netting is just kinda a new thing for me

3 years maybe 4 for bunker nets. Rock nets last longer, catch fewer fish. Horse shoe crabs and non targets (sharks, rays) shorten the life of my nets as well. Always something to mend on!

John

^^^^
What is a bunker net and a rock net? I find all thee different types of fishing methods interesting.

For sunfish/bluegill/bream type fish I would use mesh smaller than 139. For catfish and buffalo/carp 139 is really good.

Waggler I would run 30-45 set nets per day. They range from 90’ to 300’ in length. I mainly used 177 mesh. Mesh size was 5” or6” knot to knot or 10”-12” stretch. If the river was up I fished fewer nets because I targeted eddys. If the river was down near pool stage I would run nets cross ways in the river as close to the dam as I legally could.
When the river was at pool I would fish 200’to 300’ nets. I would have 45 or so nets out.
Also when the river was up I would drift net fish the deep holes during winter when the fish would be schooled up in mass. I would idle over holes with my sonar. If I seen a big ball of fish I would go up river and deploy a long net. Lead core bottom rope and float rope on top. Scoop em up

^^^^^
That looks like fun, except I don't know if I'd want to be tending 35 set nets. Do you hand pull or use a power roller?
What do they use those paddle fish for, seems like I've heard they aren't too good to eat.

Hand pulled. Paddlefish =caviar

Few more . This was in a 80’ hole. I was fishing a 20’ deep net with 40’ of dropper line to get the net down to the ball of fish.

Between these two I got 42 pounds of caviar. They were caught side by side in the same net.

Is that fishery open to new entrants or is it a limited or closed entry fishery?
Do you sell the entire fish or you semi process them and just sell the roe?
I'm curious what the typical prices per pound, either the fish or the roe..

Are you using a lead core line ? If so what weight to get it to sink those floats ?

Are you using a lead core line ? If so what weight to get it to sink those floats ?

Ok and had a little break through with the mono size deal.

One of my pre made nets I bought actually came from the fishnet company and is a No.6 size mono ( what y'all would call a 139 or .40mm) so I think I got a good genarl idea what the next size up or down will be like.

Looking at this I reckon the 104,139,and 177 sizes will cover about every I could want to do.

Ok so another question . I see in the fish net company they have a No.3 (69) size but it only comes in a 6" stretched mesh. If I'm grasping this right that would have a smaller size diameter and lighter breaking strength than a No.4 (104 ). I gotta ask with that mesh size and the mono characteristics, what on earth could it be used for ?

Waggler it’s open to any new comers. I mainly fished the Ohio River which is a few minutes from my home. The paddlefish meat is valuable too. Currently the caviar is selling for $85-100 per pound to a buyer. I sold the meat for $1.50 per pound wholesale.
Wolfie I used 30-50 weight lead core. 30 for set nets and 50 for drift nets.
If you live near a net company or have one within a reasonable drive you need to go there. You can buy lots of netting,rope and floats for a discount. I have bought broken spools of leadcore for half price. They always have partial boxes of floats and what not.
I don’t want to sound like a game warden but you need to check your regs for mesh size and diameter on netting. We cannot use anything smaller than 4” here and can only use the 5”-6” during paddlefish season. For year round only 4”

Do you have to have a commercial license to set for paddle fish?

Charles yes you do in Indiana and Kentucky.

Ok another question,say you have to cut some netting to depth. Say you have a piece that's 8' deep but you only need a 4' deep net for what ever reason if you cut your netting is it better to leave the double salvage on the top or bottom ? Or does it matter more on your environment and how you handle your nets?
This is becoming a great thread btw

^^^^^
I've never done that before but I suppose it depends on how clean and snag free your bottom is. If it's snaggy I'd put the cut selvedge on the bottom so if you do snagged it will tear lose easily rather than destroy your entire net, or you can just hang a lead line with light hanging twine. They also make what's called river leadline they use it on the Columbia river, it has a light breaking strength

You could also use tie downs. You take a 8’ deep net and every 8-10’ you put in a 4’ tie down. You tie to the top rope and run the tag end through the mesh down to the bottom rope. Now you have a 4th net with a bag. That’s the best way to catch. It’s soft to the fish rather than a taught wall of mesh.

^^^^^^
That makes for a very "fishy" net. They used to use them (maybe still do) on the Columbia river. All that extra web will catch a lot of larger fish that otherwise would not "gill" in mesh that is too small for them. As I recall a string was tied on the hanging on every-other cork, then laced through the meshes down to the leadline where it was tied off after pulling it up to the desired depth.

Exactly!!

Rockfish is striped bass
Bunker is menhaden

Rockfish is under a strict quota, I'm allowed to sell 1100 lbs annually.
Bunker are used mostly for bait in crab pots locally. I sell 40 lb boxes (flats). Several hundred boxes each spring.

.

As long as we're sharing fishing photos.
I love small boat commercial fisheries.

Thanks for sharing waggler! Great pics. I am a full time farmer, part time fisherman. I sure do love hand pulling those nets, like having traps set!

Very educational. Really enjoyed it. Expert advice.

Liking this thread . Waggler , do you use that post as a towing bit ? You guys run your nets gunnel to gunnel if I’m correct ??

There are six post sockets, three on each side
Yes, most of the time we pick the net gunnel to gunnel. The net then goes right back into the water on the opposite side of the boat.
Depending on the current sometimes the net goes 90 degrees across the boat, and sometimes at an angle, that's why there are six sockets.
There is a tow post near the stern, we only use it at the outset of fishing when we are setting out.
Doing much towing where we are (even picking up our net anchors) can be extremely dangerous. We freqeuntly deal with 6 knot currents and high winds.

And so the post is tall to keep the net from jumping out when it’s rough ?

Hadn't thought of that !

Awsome pictures by the way

Yes, good for holding stuff too, throw rings, spare coils of line, etc..

JoMiBru sent you a message

Great thread

Ok so another question, mono vs multifiliment . When do y'all pretty to use either and for what ?

I'll have a multifiliment i use for carp and love the way it catches but theirs so much trash in these ponds I bet that I usually spend more than an hour picking and untangling everything from sticks to barbers wire out . The mono doesn't seem to catch as well if they don't hit it real hard but it doesn't catch as much trash

^^^^
I think you've already pretty much figured out the advantages and disadvantages of each. Plus I don't believe mono is as durable or strong as multi.

You can try a lighter mono, or add an extra mesh per tie, but theres no right answer for everything.

My limited experience with mono the knots tended to slip more

When there is no current the multifiliment will catch waaaaay better than mono. However if there is any current at all a cocklebur will swim up river to be caught in multi. Multi in current is heartbreaking.
Our paddlefish season comes in November 1. Some years the river is still at summer pool stage. You can run 100 yd gill nets side ways in the river. Put out 35 100 yard nets and your making hay.

JoMiBru I wanna come pull nets with you! I love your home waters.

Bring your oilskins and cmon!

Don’t threaten me because I will!😜

Ok another question, how does one go about matching up your float line to your lead line. Like do you want twice as much bouancy to your weight or do you want it even not does it depend on the type of bet your using ?

It wont matter as long as your corks are floating. We use both 85/100 and 95/100 lead line. I like the 95 myself for our strong Yukon current. Some use the 95/100 for set net, we drift net here mostly.

My gillnetting video. Looks like I have over a million views

I use 200 pounds of lead per 100 fathoms of lead line, and a cork on every third hanging. So that means there is about 16 inches between each cork, the hangings are just under eight inches.
I fish in very strong current, the main reason for close spacing on the corks isn't just because of a heavy lead line , but also because the net loads up with a lot of fish. The dead fish will eventually sink the net anyway if you're not fast enough picking fish.

Very little current here. I use 35 lb for spot and perch nets. 50 lb for bunker nets and 65 for striped bass nets, even in the ocean. Some nets I want to sink, I just back down my float size. Others I want to float, so I up the size. I hang my ocean nets 8 ft deep, with bullet corks every 10 feet down the float line. The nets have to stay off the bottom to help avoid sting rays/ skates/ horse shoe crabs.

So I guess it depends on amount of current, and whether you want to sink or float the net

John

Yukonjeff I don’t know about you but at the end of the season pulling nets I could have pull started a Harley Davidson one handed.

Oh yea , Fishing keeps you young for sure.

Winter adds a whole new dimension, get to shovel snow and chop ice too



Todays catch.

Now that's pretty cool ! I've seen a few videos on folks setting nets under the ice, do you use one of those boards that drags the net to the next hole ? Sorry not sure what their called

Interesting,never thought sting rays would be a problem, mabye it's just my ignorance but seems like they would just kinda bounce off a net unless there's alot of bag , learn something new every day lol

Ok so sorry another stupid question lol bit what exactly are you referring to when you say 85/100?

We cant use those boards here on the Yukon the current would take them away, and a lot of broken,jagged ice as well.

We make several holes and thread a line through using a empty floating jug tied to a long pole. Once we get a line threaded under the ice, we can just pull the net under the ice tied to it,and check it with the line again.

I had a video on setting a net but YouTube took it down.

Here is one checking it last year.



Here is another on hanging a gillnet I forgot I did.

They call it 85/100 its 85 lbs of lead line per hundred ft of line. There are no stupid questions when someone is trying to learn.
The lead line you see hanging on the bottom of the net, and laying across the floor at the end of the net hanging video is 95/100 that's pretty heavy, good for our strong current. I set the net at an angle on the river so the net don't get the full effect of the current and lift up. Think of a curtain waving in the wind. Don't want that.

Wanted to show y'all what I came up with with a all y'alls advice. The top and bottom lines came off a old Chinese net I bought that was crappy to say the least. It's just a little bait net 13' long 4 deep and I think I hung it at a little over 65% ratio with 13" ties

Personally I would of made my ties a little closer like 8" but I think that would will catch fish too. Looks good.

Ttt

That will work. What kind of fish are you targeting?
The web looks like maybe 3 1/2 or so stretched measure??

So can anyone give me the basics on float and lead rope ?

2" mesh I was making it for small pan fish but didn't work too well.

Wolfdog: Centrarchids in general but the sunfishs especially are poorly taken with gillnets. Agencies who want representative samples of the various species of warmwater fishes will usually employ impounding gear such as hoop or fyke nets. I am aware of one major screwup where an ill informed biologist rotenoned a small lake that held trophy bluegill after he sampled only with gill nets. Actually lost that job over the ensuing mess although he was transferred into a central hub where screwups were given a desk and chair but not allowed to have paper, pencil or phone (exaggeration but not by much). The mesh pictured appears much to large for most of the fish in your smaller ponds. Finally, very short sections of gill net frequently do not fish well. Many fishes either lead on a net or rise over it if given an opportunity to do so. Much of the information known about gill nets and how they fish is from research on the Great Lakes which have generally very clear water and even mono nets are fairly visible. Far less is known about the gear and how it works in turbid or darkly stained waters but from the accounts that I am familiar with, gill nets likely fish somewhat better in waters where they are less visible.

If your trying to gillnet panfish your better off going with a size that would catch just in front of the dorsal fins and the belly, they were probably bouncing right off that 2in unless super small fish. Tighten your hangings up alot, that is a mess in the works as far as having the leads fall through or corks falling back into the large hangings. You don't want to over stretch your hangings. Hanging on the half is pretty common . Say 3 in mesh swinging 4 meshes = 12 divided by 2 = 6 in ties swinging 4 mesh each tie.

Yeah I'm learning its a whole differnt ball game lol. Fish don't hit the nets as hard and mesh size is so much more important. Figured this one would have work ok for bullhead after I watched sunfish kinda swim up to it and back off but having been able o set it out in a while

Ok so when you say
3 in mesh swinging 4 meshes

Sorry if it sou d's stupid just really trying to get this terminology down lol.

Now back on the float and lead line. How do you know what you want ?
So what I'm reading is your main sizes of float rope are #12-#32 with buoyancy per yard being .9oz-10.5 oz.
And your lead rope is sized #20-#85 the sizes being the weight of 600 feet of lead line..

So I take it (and this is just me figuring) you would calculate how long your net would be then calculate your total buoyancy in yards (like a 20yd net with a #16 float rope at a boyancey of 1.7oz per yard. 20'÷3= 6.6 yards ×1.7 oz =11.22 oz of buoyancy for a 20yd net.
Then you would calculate the weight if your lead line so say #30 is 30lbs for 600 feet which is 200 yd and your net is 20yd. 20 yd is 10% of 200yd and there's 30lbs of lead per 200yd so you need to know what 10% of 30lbs is so if my math is right you should have 3lbs of lead line..

So if I wanted a sinking net I would use these calculations to find what's gonna have more weight then buoyancy and if I wanted a floating net I would do the same but just to figure what I need to pick the lead off the bottom .
Am I kinda in the ball park here or am I waaaaaay over thinking this ?
Seems if your in still water the lead line dosent later as much as in current

Ttt

Some may use a floating gillnet with more float than lead BUT in my many years working with commercial fisheries in the Great Lakes and with research nets, every floating gillnet I ever saw was suspended at the desired depth from large added floats that were on the surface. Trying to exactly balance floatation against lead lines seems tricky at best. Nets would need to have substantial over floatation at the start to remain floating when loaded with fish.

The first thing you need to decide if you want the net to float on top of the water or sink to the bottom. If wot want it to sink 30 lead rope with a3/8 or 1/2 float rope. If you want it to float go with a large float rope and a smaller lead rope.

Wolf how long of net are you trying to make?