The purse seine is used mainly for catching dense, mobile schools of Pelagic fish, and includes all the elements of searching, hunting and capture of the targeted fish.
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The schools of fish are surrounded and impounded by means of large surrounding nets called either ring nets or purse seines, according to design.
The origins of the purse seine can be traced back to one of the most basic types of fishing gear, the beach seine, which has been used, through the ages, almost all over the world. A deep beach seine, operated offshore, would be seen as an early form of ring net or lampara net.
By being made deeper still, and fitted with primitive purse rings and purse line, it could be regarded as an early purse seine. In many of the smaller fisheries, the nets are referred to as ring nets – although very similar, they are actually two different methods of fishing.