Cast Net Wideners For A Handmade Cast Net

[@montyrivers1529]

I like to see the Flying Dutchman method in use. I live in south Louisiana and have made a few cast nets myself. The knot you were using on the winder is called a sheet bend. When you go through twice to lock it in it’s a double sheet bend. I make my own hoop nets. I buy the bonded twine by the case and tie nots to build the barrel of the nets then I turn it inside out to where the flues go I’ll tie into the barrel tie it up then I hang it tail up and install the hoops on the outside of the net every 10 mesh. I’ll use double salvage to tie the hoops on. I enjoyed you video. Hand made nets are dying out with our generation. That will be another lost art. 😢

[@BarryJonesSr]

Thank you Monty. You are right, I use a sheet bend to tie the Widener. Depending on what I am doing, I also use a lot of Double Sheet Bends. In particular I use a double sheet bend on the initial loops to start the net. I also double the twine on the first three rows and on the bottom selvage, I either use a larger twine or double the twine I used for the rest of the net. On a Dacron net I am building now, I used 150 lb. Test Dyneema for the bottom selvage and hung the leads to it with # 9 tarred nylon on a braid lead-line. Where I throw, oyster shell can eat the lead-line and bottom of the net in a hurry. The dyneema is strong, but it’s diameter is about the size of #6 nylon. We’ll see how it works out. I use the flying knot or flying dutchman knot as a mesh knot. It tends to be a more secure knot in nylon or any of the newer twines than a sheet bend. When I first started making nets all we had was cotton, usually #9 sea island twine and the sheet bends worked fine with cotton. Especially if you dipped the net with coppertox. The flying knot was faster and did not slip as much once nylon came along.