Page 1 of 3
[Page 1] , [Page
2] , [Page 3]
[Coracle Fishing
Net Photos 5 March 2009]
The coracle net is made from two sheets of netting, the front or 'armouring' is made of large mesh that allows the fish to swim through into the sheet or 'lint' that is made of smaller mesh. The sheet mesh is three times deeper than the front and when attached to the front by all four sides creates a bag in which the fish are caught.
A weighted line called the footrope runs along the bottom of the net while at the top the net hangs from the stapling line with rings evenly spaced and whipped on with cord. The headline is threaded through these rings along which they run in the same way curtain rings are opened and closed. The above describes the River Teifi net that unlike the River Tywi has no cork floats running between the rings and is fished in a different way.
Traditional Teifi Salmon Net - Handmade by Conwy
The River Teifi technique for landing (into the coracle) a fish is for one of the Coraclemen to drop his end of the net while the other pulls the headline which closes the net in the way a draw string purse would and locally called "strangling" the net. The net in the photographs was completed in the traditional way from hemp, horse hair and cow horn by Conwy Richards in 2002 and is probably the first made from traditional materials in the last forty years although some are still made and used with horse hair foot ropes.
The composite parts
Four balls of best Irish four-strand hemp twine were used to tie the mesh, a task that took all winter by knotting two rows of mesh a day.
Hand weaving the nets
Hand weaving the nets
The cow horn was bought from a supplier to stick makers and the horse-hair came all the way from China. In the past it was usual for the rope to be made by two people but Conwy adapted the Process and completed the net single handed by first spinning the lengths of hair and then platting them. The foot rope was spun and twisted to two ply creating a weaker rope than those suspending the net, this was intentional to allow the rope to break if it were to be snagged on the bottom of the river and the net could then be recovered.
Traditional materials used throughout
Traditional materials used throughout
The natural spring in the spun horse hair helps the foot rope bounce along the river bottom, a characteristic not wanted in the other ropes and removed by passing the ropes through a flame that also tightens the plait and burns off the short hair. Lead weights attached to the foot rope completed the net.
