Boatnerd Discussion Forum

On the Yahoo news page I saw a section about the best lake areas in the U.S. to visit. One of them was the same place, almost exactly, as one of those 1930s photos. I think it said that was in Lealand.

Guest wrote:Back in the day, probably made of cotton, not the polypropylene which never seems to breakdown/rot.

I went and looked up what fishing nets were made of early in the past century in my copy of A. C. Hardy's T

he Book of the Ship

, a valuable if somewhat dated reference source. He indicates that trawling nets were normally made of Manila hemp twine, while gill nets, having less stress put on them were normally made of cotton twine. It is likely that the nets shown drying were, in fact, made of cotton.

Back in the day, probably made of cotton, not the polypropylene which never seems to breakdown/rot.

Ok, fish nets. Thanks so much. That's just beautiful. I love those photos, very interesting.
Thanks again.

I don't know if they have a name or not, but as Coast Guard Bob mentioned, they are reels for drying fishnets on. They were once common in every fishing village but I suspect they disappeared once synthetic nets became common. You can still see them in Leland (see photo in link) and I remember seeing them along the beach at Traverse Bay (on Big Traverse Bay in the Keweenaw) the last time I was there.

http://pics.boatnerd.com/v/ship1/album5 ... h.jpg.html

Fish nets wound on reels for drying.

I knew those were probably gulls, wanted to know what these are.

No, not the gulls. I mean those box-shaped things that look like they're standing on the corners. These things.

Sea gulls. ;)

Hi,
I absolutely Love old pictures! The old tug photos in the News Gallery are beautiful. What are those things on the dock?