The shore man, moves downstream with the falling tide, which serves to encompass a greater area of the holding pool before drawing the net in.
The net is then drawn in, the led weighed foot line in the middle, the whole forming a bag, the final bit of strengthened mesh called the bunt.
The fish caught are quickly dispatched and removed and the net is then cleaned and sorted, prior to re loading it in the boat for the next “put”.
A hundred years ago, there were three draft nets at Dromana / Villierstown, catching up to 6000 fish a year. These were quickly carted to the railway station in Cappoquin, and would be in the Billingsgate Fish Market in London twenty hours later.
Below is best haul of 2010
These black and white photos were taken back in the eighties.