nets

This post was written by Lukasz, who volunteers with us every Thursday from Annan Academy.

The Museum currently has an exhibition on display which shows Haaf Net Fishing. On Monday 13th of January 2020, several fishermen visited the museum (see photographs below) one of them loaned us this interesting objects which we aim to put on display soon.  These items belonged to his father and we are delighted to have them on loan.

Haaf Net Fishing is a Norse style of fishing that was adopted by the people of this local area of Solway Firth after Viking settlements and it involves the person going to the middle of the body of water with a big net than the person would place the net under the water then when a fish is caught the net is taken out of the water.

These objects (photographed above) are what was used to ‘knit’ the net used for this style of fishing because the people of the area had to make their own net out of hemp.  The net would be knitted by the fisherman and his wife. This six objects are three knitting needles (bottom of photo) and three measures (top of the photo).  One measure to make nets catching salmon (top left), one for nets for catching trout (middle top) and one for nets catching baby trout (top right).

For more information on haaf netting, see: http://www.annanhaafnets.org/