Pots and Traps:

Traps, in various forms of cages or baskets, have been used throughout the world for many years to catch a wide variety shellfish and fish.

The basic design has not changed that very much over the years; the major changes have been in the materials that are used to make the gear. Early gear would have been made with wicker or willow, woven into a basket- form with a tapered entrance in the top, and stones inside to weight them down on the seabed.

Nowadays, the pots and traps are made, along similar lines to the old wicker ones, but using modern materials such as wood, steel, plastic etc for the frame;, this being and covered with nylon and polyethylene netting.

The Gill Net:

Gill net is a collective name for many different styles of nets as well as being a specific style of net in itself. Many of these nets will be referred to by different names in different fisheries.

In basic terms, any gill net is a curtain of fine netting hung in the water, either anchored to the seabed (gill nets or set nets) or allowed to drift with the tide (drift nets) for fish to swim into and become entangled or meshed in the fine netting.

Some form of gill nets has been used by man to trap fish for many thousands of years. Their efficiency improved dramatically with the use of modern twines. To begin cotton was used, then nylon, nowadays most of the nets will be made with monofilament or multi- monofilament. 

Gill nets in many guises are extensively used throughout the world, with the nets being rigged slightly differently in each fishery to suit the size of boat and the target species in that area.