Chepstow Stop-Net Boat
The stop-net boat is a heavily built open vessel of some 20ft in length though maybe a couple of feet longer down at Beachley where the river opens up to the Severn. The fishermen mainly set stop-nets for salmon in the lower reaches of the river. Originally rigged with a small lug sail on a mast perhaps 10ft high, they had a small leeboard although some of the larger ones had a centre-board. They were built locally from either half models or drawings. When fishing, they were generally fastened to the fishing stations using 30 foot long poles pushed into the riverbed, holding the boat against the strong current. Some fished as far upstream as Brockweir.Fishing was between April and August. Much of the fishing occurred off Chepstow where some eight boats worked up to the end of this mode of fishing in 2000. To fish, the boats moored in the middle of the river – half in England, half in Wales, so to speak, held against the current by the poles stuck into the mud. To do this somewhat precarious manoeuvre, they would first find their onshore marker, and line up the boat exactly before positioning the boat across the current with three poles, the first one pushed down over the gunwale and lashed. Second pole went in over the stern at an angle of about 45 degrees and lashed. Third one again lashed to the stern and then the first one moved to the bow of the boat, tilted in like a steeper angle and tied off. Thus all three poles were holding the boat across the current of the river before the anchor rope was gently released to ensure the poles were holding the boat.
Only then could they prepare the rames by spreading them out into the V shape, some 25 feet at the outer ends, the tension created by pegging the spreader. Then they could be lowered into the water, slowly as this adds weight to the poles, with the net flowing out beneath the boat. The rames were half up by a prop from the bottom of the boat. Then you could start fishing, using the strings from the net to ‘feel’ for a fish and when there’s as sense that there is a fish in the net, the prop is kicked out, the rames are pressed down and the net lifts out of the water. To extract any fish, the net is gathered up and the fish killed with the priest and taken, before the rames are dropped back into the water and the net back flowing beneath the keel.
Sources 5, 7
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