Two netting stages behind the Cornish pilchard fishery.
A seine was a large net used to surround a shoal, with floats at the top and weights below. Once fish were enclosed, a smaller tuck net helped gather them into baskets and boats. Wilkie Collins described this work in west Cornwall during his 1850 journey. His account also follows the catch into salting houses, where women and girls preserved it for sale. Those observations explain a regional process; they are not proof of a particular Newquay crew or pay rate.
Wilkie Collins, Rambles Beyond Railways — The Pilchard Fishery
Sources
Wilkie Collins, Rambles Beyond Railways, chapter VII. Journey in 1850; first published 1851; linked online text is a later edition.
Connected subjects
Read on
- The Man Who Shouted Fish: Huer’s Hut and the People Behind the Pilchards
You could mistake Newquay’s Huer’s Hut for something built to improve a postcard. A little white building on the headland. The sea behind it. Just enough character to make you point a camera at it.