Building and using a Polynesian throw-net

Jim March

Jim March

Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
Joined
Oct 7, 1998
Messages
3,018
In this first post I'll show how they're built if you want to home-brew one, and the basics of how they work.

They can also be bought commercially.

How to throw them and "tactical notes" can wait for tomorrow, this graphic took a WHILE to do
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.

I used of one of several sizes of these suckers on a regular basis for about eight years. NOTHING gathers food as fast or efficiently...NOTHING.

(In case it's not clear, the "middle graphic" is a close-up of the main junction where the slip-ring, wrist rope and mesh all "come together".)

Jim
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[This message has been edited by Jim March (edited 14 December 1999).]
 
A couple more contruction details:

The outer edge of the mesh is a single loop of "light rope", paracord grade or similar. That anchors the mesh, the weights and the "draw strings".

The amount of weight is a tradeoff between sink speed (nails more fishies) and your ability to chuck the thing long distance. About 2oz per 8" of circumference is a starting point...all the commercial ones I ever bought I ended up adding some heft.

In case it's not clear from the "dinner is served" pic, the slip-ring has slid down the drawstrings, stopping only when it jams up on the circumference rope and weights which are too bulky to fit through the slip-ring.

A slip-ring with neutral bouyancy is probably best because it'll drift with the mesh during the sink. A slip-ring made out of a heavy piece of brass might make the center drop so fast it keeps up with the drop of the lead, allowing more fish to swim out from under...this is suboptimal.

The slip-ring shown here is of classic Polynesian type. Most commercial ones will have a simple brass or stainless ring with the mesh anchored to it directly...that means the center of the slip-ring isn't very "slick", which is a desirable feature, it'll snap closed faster when you yank the rope in deep water. If you're letting it sink to a sandy bottom then closure speed isn't an issue.

Jim
 
Jim-

This is terrific!

Buyer beware -- some commercial throw-nets are intended for shallow sandy bottom work only, as they have no draw strings, no slip-ring, no hole in the center of the net, and cannot be used in deep water without modification.

Looking forward to the continuation of your lessons here.

-Mike
 
If it isn't this basic design, it's crap. Or too specialized. The commercial types mentioned are generally for surf smelt or other schools of same-size small fishies, they work by having mesh holes exactly tuned to their little heads so they're really a type of gill-net.

The type I'm describing with the slip-ring can take a WIDE variety of fish sizes. Anything from smelt/anchovy size to larger perch, trout, even flounder or *whatever* up to maybe 5lbs. If you accidently nail something bigger, you can take it but expect to have to let it wear itself out thrashing around a bit first WHILE IN THE WATER. If it's wiggling to heck and gone while you're hauling it up in the air, serious net damage could result.

I accidently took an 8lb Lingcod with a fairly low-grade commercial 8ft diameter net once. Managed to avoid damage despite fairly light mesh.

Jim
 
OK, let's get into throwing these bad boys!

As a beginner, you want to start with a RADIUS of 1ft less than your height, or smaller. Right? An 8ft to 10ft spread is actually a very good general purpose survival tool, small enough for freshwater use and you'll have good distance ability. I graduated to an 18ft spread later and I've thrown 24ft spread nets.

But let's say you're 6ft tall and throwing a 10ft diameter net...and for easier explanations, you're right handed.

The rope needs to be "long enough"
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. Guesstimate - you want the net to be able to sink completely plus go a ways out and don't forget to add in the height of the pier/warf/gunnel/whatever your might be throwing from.

Make a slip-knot and put it on your right hand. MAKE SURE IT AIN'T COMING OFF!
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Don't cut off circulation, but it MUST not come off.

Coil the rope with small loops of about a foot across the palm of your right hand. When you run out of rope, you lay the slip-ring and top of the mesh across your palm as if it was the "last loop". Now raise your right hand and the top of the net so that the whole thing dangles...check for tangles, it should hang straight and even like a really skinny chick's skirt
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.

Reach down and grab one edge of the net in your off hand - it should be the part of the edge that's "furthest away from you". Raise it up and lay it across the now-very-full right palm, and grab tight. You then run your left hand down the edge of the mesh "to the left" about three or four feet, and grab that edge.

If you now hold both arms outstretched, the net is trying to "open" away from you. This is good! Another way to visualize is if you hold the net in a "Matador's cape" position, it would be opening "towards the bull".

THE THROW:

To get the right "topspin", move your right arm way back. You're going to snap it forward and heave while moving your right hand "across your body at face level". During the throw, your left hand will move to the right at about sternum level and at the moment you let go, your arms are radically crossed with the right higher than the left.

The motion with your right hand is best described as "Dracula drawing his cloak across his face in a cheesy movie", that's exactly what it looks like. Pretty much ALL the power is coming out of your right hand. At teh end of the throw, your right hand opens as it gives a small nudge back to the left, to ensure enough "topspin" hits to force the entire net wide open by centrifigal force.

You're basically throwing a giant floppy frisbee.

I'll talk about bigger-net variations later, gotta go!

Jim
 
Jim-

A further note on the design of some simple throw-nets. The commercial type I have (which has no central hole, no ring and no closing lines) has an interesting design at the edges. Imagine that the net has been thrown into shallow water with a sand bottom. The lead weights at the edge cause the edge to sink to the bottom. At that moment, the edge of the net forms a vertical wall, rising and narrowing to the center of the net which is still above. Any fish in the net area are panicked and swimming into the edge of the net. Here is where the design is different from the throw-net you have so-far described. The net itself has small (2-1/2 inch) openings. But woven inside (toward the center of) the edge of that net is another net, with larger openings. When the fish swim from the center of the net area out into the edge of the net, they first swim through this loose net (which is attached above to the side of the net and below to the bottom of the net). So when the fish are stopped by the 2-1/2" holes in the outer net, they are in a doughnut-shaped tunnel of netting that extends right around the base of the net as it sits on the sandy bottom.

I appologize if this is hard to visualize. The design is as if you took the edge of the net, where the weights normally go, and folded it back on itself, and attached it to itself like a hem on a skirt (where the extra fabric on the "unseen" inside of the bottom of the hem comes up a good foot or two, and the weights are at the place where the hem in a skirt is normally ironed flat). In a woman's skirt, the hem is small, but here it is large. In a skirt, the hem is intended to always lie flat against the outside of the bottom of the skirt, but here the hem is intended to billow out and form a floppy tunnel around the base of the skirt (what I am calling the "edge" of the net).

The real tricky part of the design is that the inner side of this tunnel, the part made of the looser net weave, has holes which are not square, as in the normal net. The inner holes are vertical, tall and skinny. And the distance from the weights to where the inner loose net is attached to the outer net is shorter for the inner net than it is for the outer net. That way, when the fisherman/-woman pulls up on the center of the net, these loose vertical holes are pulled closed, trapping the fish in the doughnut-shaped tunnel! The net is hauled out of the water, and the fish cannot escape out the bottom.

Hence, in this design at least, there is a different closing mechanism that does not use a ring, and the outer net is not intended as a gill-net. However, it can only be effectively used on a flat bottom, and would not work in many situations that your design would work in.

-Mike
 
Very interesting. Sounds like it's specialized for use on sandy beaches against smelt or similar.

Mine can be used in DEEP water from a boat! As it sinks, there's a tendency for the outer weighted loop to slowly close. This effect is boosted if the slip-ring is of light material versus something heavy - what you do NOT want is the center sinking faster than the edges.

You could also build a variant on mine using much heavier cord, a bigger mesh-hole diameter of 2" or so and only a 6ft to 8ft spread for use on freshwater large fish such as salmon. Survival only, of course, we're WAY past what any Fish & Game department would go for. Still, if I had a very remote cabin suceptable to being snowed in or otherwise isolated, something like that laying around would be damned useful.

The mesh could be done in something like fly-fishing line, the drawstrings in paracord with the core slipped out...you could yank the thing off of rocks in a streambed with little risk of damage. You could throw this accurately up to 20 or 30 feet at visible targets in 1ft or so depth water.

Jim
 
Jim-

In tropical waters, my net is used for mullet and "goatfish" (a sandy bottom feeder, similar to the Corbina found in Baja waters).

I'm having difficulty learning to throw my net. It's way too big for a beginner... that's the main problem. But after many tries it seems that I may need to take care with which hand releases first, and one might hang on substantially longer than the other? Any clues would be appreciated! Thanks.

-Mike
 
OK, let's talk about throwing the big boys.

It's a variation on the smaller. Once you coil up the rope in the right hand, you keep looping the top of the net as if it was just "more rope except fatter". Keep looping until there's about 5ft of net still dangling.

Then, just like the "small net directions", you lift the outermost edge of "skirt" up into your right hand. You then loop a bit more of the skirt up to the right hand, about 2ft LEFTWARDS of the first place on the skirt that hit your right hand. You then grab a spot about 4ft further left in your left hand.

The throw is similar, all the power is coming out of your right. You end up with your arms crossed in the same way. But you've got to put a LOT of power in it. And the key thing is that the right hand releases LAST, that's what puts the topspin on it. You should have a feeling of a "pulling" with the right hand, it isn't a "clean release"...the net will be spinning counter-clockwise viewed from above if you're right-handed.

A southpaw needs to reverse EVERYTHING.

In all cases the strong hand needs to be the rope tie-down, hold the rope coils and be the main throw force...and throw and release "high" compared to the off-hand releasing low. The strong arm stays mostly straight, power comes out of the whole torso/shoulder swinging the lead around, powered ultimately out of the legs. A long session with a net should NOT leave your strong arm feeling all that dead, if so you're relying on that arm too much and you can't get enough topspin with just arm power on a big net.

I hope this helps. Suggestion: lay out the net right in your living room, get the proper hold down while reading this right off the screen and "slow-motion-visualize" the release. Then take it outside and try it; you'll find this will help a LOT.

Jim
 
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