many times i have seen posts saying someone seen a net"streched clear across the river"
when it really was just a few cork lines to hold the net in place.i grew up in the northwest and have seen many different kinds of nets, not just from the shore, just a shame that people drive over a bridge, see a few corks(like the ones on the queets river) and say " oh the queets tribe is fishing, nets have been in for a few days"... wrong
or ive heard from guys who have pulled their boats out at the queets clearwater confluence
" there is a net stretched clear across to the log jam" wrong....
nets on the coast, have a cork every foot or so, because the rivers are so small and so low you dont want the net to touch the bottom causing it to snag and then lose your net, make sense??? yes it does,,
also you will never see a net choke off the mouth, fishing grounds cannot be directly across the river from one another, they are staggered, make sense again???
when you set out a net in a fishing ground, it has to stay there, so the fisherman load a burlap sack,(the kind coffe is shipped in 50lbs bulk)with river rock tie it closed and leave enough to attach a long tie line(depends on how deep)and set in place, a fisherman gets 50 fathms of net to set for one ground(on the quinault)you can have as many tie lines as you want to keep your net place.some people have 7 tie lines to a net, thats alot, to someone who knows nothing about netting it probly looks like a net!!!!
i hear crap about nets all the time and how easy money it is, fill all those sacks and lay out a fishing ground its hard work.
like potter said not everyone fishes for the money, they do it to get by.
note: you can also use a stake to set a net in place,hemlock pole driven into ground to hold net with tie lines.