winter lashings

[den]

I have got my hands on some ash sticks about an inch or so thick and a couple of feet long. The plan is hopefully to make a string of crab/lobster pots up for the spring.

I’ve got a few designs I want to try but my problem and reason for posting this thread is to do with lashing sticks together. Sounds simple I know. If it was not winter I would have used lime bast or something. But winter limits things a bit. Any suggestions would be great. One design is all lashings so I need quite a bit and was going to try a few different types to see which held up best in salt water.

I have used pine root on small jobs nothing this size. Should I get a problem?

So fire away if you know of any good winter cordage, roots or withies.

Cheers
Den

 

[ESpy]

Dunno what longevity you want out of these pots, Den, but everything I've seen recommends against ash in wet conditions (and that's just fresh water, let alone salt water!).

 

[den]

No more than a season or two at most as with any wooden pot.

Ash was a wood traditionally used in pots

I was expecting the lashings to break down first hence the question.

I used ash last year with willow to make some small prawn pots with no problems. The willow helped lock it all down nice but No willow this time as i brought it from a farm in somerset(cheating)
Den

 

[george]

Hi Den

I would try for some spruce roots. I've managed to get them 25 feet and longer. When you split them down they make great lashing material. They were traditionaly used for lashing fish hooks so they should stand up ok for what you want them to do.

george

 

[ESpy]

No more than a season or two at most as with any wooden pot.

Ash was a wood traditionally used in pots

Really? Wow. I know from using ash as posts & plant supports that it doesn't survive well past a year, but I suppose that is constantly immersed (thick clay soil) which can't help much.

How about a tutorial? :biggthump

 

[den]

Sure I’d love to do a tutorial. I’ll get them finished and fishing first as they might be a pile of c**p yet.
It’s more of an experiment to see what works and what does not. The aim is to make a pot which works using minimal effort to construct with all hand collected natural materials.
I’m looking at making half a dozen pots of various designs which I’m going to use as many different materials as I can get hold of for lashings, ropes etc. to see for first hand what holds up.

I am really stuck on the float too...

 

[jakunen]

I am really stuck on the float too...

One idea would be to use pig leather. Sew a football out of the skin and boil the leather in beeswax and oil to proof it. Finish the stiching aftewards obviously. This will flaot quite well, and shoudl last fro ages even in salt water. Use laether thonging rather than linen cord.

 

[george]

Den

In a local museum up here there are a couple of creel floats that have been made out of animal bladders - look like sheep. one end has been lashed closed around a wooden plug, the other stitched up and the whole thing waterproofed with pitch or tar. The wooden plug has a substantial hole through it - I presume to take a rope to the creel.

I dont know how easy it is to find sheep bladders down your way - but it looks like folks in the old days had a similar problem to you in finding other natural materials that would work effectively.

george

 

[jakunen]

George, animal bladders, mainly pig or sheep, were used as floats, but as you say, it won't be very esy to find them these days unless you know a friednly abatoir owner, but even then with EU regulations I doubt they can be used for any purpose. That's why I suggested sewing a float, as my first thoght ws also bladders...

 

[alick]

I've no experience of this at all, but intuitively my choice for woodstrip / roots / withies to be used for lashing in wet conditions would be to look at trees and bushes that naturally favour damp conditions. Willow would seem one of the best choices if this theory works in practice. Woods that are used in steam bent furniture such as ash, beech and birch are presumably easily affected by water and I would have guessed them to be poor choices.

How about trying holly. It's a waxy, flexible sort of plant. Maybe this would help it survive.

Interesting problem !

 

[arctic hobo]

When I was in Italy a long time ago a fisherman showed me his floats were made from pumice stone coated in something. I have no idea what he did or how good they were, but maybe it will help :?:

 

[george]

Jakunen - our posts must have crossed in the ether somewhere, I didn't see yours till now.

You can still buy what are called "ox bungs" from sausage skin suppliers. They are basically a large fat part of the intestine that are used for making haggis casings etc. Might be suitable for a float but not exactly hand collected natural materials

george

 

[den]

Thanks all

I've not really put much thought into the float until now. An animal bladder sounds great, stone too. Looks like whatever the choice I’m going to need a lot of pitch for this job. How do you think the bladder will react with the salt water or will that not matter as it's covered? Mmm

I've always been fascinated with the pitch water bottles. Sewing a float type version would be great.

Suddenly a thing as simple as a float which can be found today in any old milk carton or container appears to be more daunting than making the creel..
:yikes:

 

[mojofilter]

Id be interested to see a pic of a finished creel. I help my mate make and fish the pots in the summer, but we use 3"by1" for the bases and 1 inch plastic gas pipe for the risers, an old railway fishplate for the weight and a plastic bhoy or empty gallon can!

What do you plan to use for netting and weights?

 

[den]

One idea would be to use pig leather. Sew a football out of the skin and boil the leather in beeswax and oil to proof it. Finish the stiching aftewards obviously. This will flaot quite well, and shoudl last fro ages even in salt water. Use laether thonging rather than linen cord.

Nice one jakunen. i didn't see this post earlier something funny must have happened.

 

[den]

Id be interested to see a pic of a finished creel. I help my mate make and fish the pots in the summer, but we use 3"by1" for the bases and 1 inch plastic gas pipe for the risers, an old railway fishplate for the weight and a plastic bhoy or empty gallon can!

What do you plan to use for netting and weights?

No problems I’ll get a pic up as soon as I’m done.

For weights I am going to just weight the pots with a big rock and put them down on singles. As I expect you know yourself pulling up a string of pots by hand is hard graft and you'd need some pretty good rope for the job. The only thing that comes to mind is lime bast for a good rope but that’s a spring job.
Any other suggestions would be great.

I was only going to net a few pots. I've made 50ft of clematis cordage so far which will soon be netted. I make 10ft per hour so it a long job. I'm not too sure how it will hold up to the rot though. Seeing as nettle has a good rep for not rotting I’ve got to include it even though it might be a bit brittle when out the water. I'm totally out of nettle fibre so again another wait to spring.
The other ideal. Is to split the ash into strips and weave that in instead of net.
Mmm what to do.

Stuartyr
What sort of things do you mainly catch up in Scotland?
Down on the south coast it's mainly spider crabs big ones too with the odd lobster and brown crab. I done really well on the cuttle fish too last year I love the stuff so much more tender than squid. I can’t see why you hardly ever see it in the shops...

 

[george]

Den

for the ropes you could use the roots of bog pine - this was traditionally used in the NW for boats cables, hawsers etc as it is particularily rot proof. You beat the roots with a mallet until they are broken down in to individual fibres and then twist them into rope. heather makes a very strong rope as does purple moor grass, which was traditionally used on the isle of Skye for making mooring ropes for fishing boats.

sedge roots were used to make the string to weave into netting for pots and fish traps - either the sand sedge or the carnation sedge.

george

 

[mojofilter]

No problems I’ll get a pic up as soon as I’m done.

For weights I am going to just weight the pots with a big rock and put them down on singles. As I expect you know yourself pulling up a string of pots by hand is hard graft and you'd need some pretty good rope for the job. The only thing that comes to mind is lime bast for a good rope but that’s a spring job.
Any other suggestions would be great.

I was only going to net a few pots. I've made 50ft of clematis cordage so far which will soon be netted. I make 10ft per hour so it a long job. I'm not too sure how it will hold up to the rot though. Seeing as nettle has a good rep for not rotting I’ve got to include it even though it might be a bit brittle when out the water. I'm totally out of nettle fibre so again another wait to spring.
The other ideal. Is to split the ash into strips and weave that in instead of net.
Mmm what to do.

Stuartyr
What sort of things do you mainly catch up in Scotland?
Down on the south coast it's mainly spider crabs big ones too with the odd lobster and brown crab. I done really well on the cuttle fish too last year I love the stuff so much more tender than squid. I can’t see why you hardly ever see it in the shops...

Den, we do not bad with the lobsters, get a lot of crabs (are standard crabs brown crabs?) and quite a few velvet crabs and some spider crabs!

I know full well what its like to pull pots up as we dont have a hauler on the boat at the moment, we do about 50% singles and 50% lines of 5 pots.

Last year we had a 7lb pollack and a 6lb cod in the pots as well, and also some sea urchins! Believe it or not, but there is a Maltese guy that works with me and he eats the sea urchins RAW

I thought I had some pics of our pots and stuff, but I cant seem to find them. I will try and get some piccies of the gear next week if you are interested.

By the way, I have found that we have had much better results using salted bait rather than fresh bait, but have also heard it said that a rag soaked in WD40 will attract shellfish to a creel :?:

 

[den]

oh no pressed the wrong button half way through. start again underneath

 

[den]

Last year we had a 7lb pollack and a 6lb cod in the pots as well, and also some sea urchins! Believe it or not, but there is a Maltese guy that works with me and he eats the sea urchins RAW

I thought I had some pics of our pots and stuff, but I cant seem to find them. I will try and get some piccies of the gear next week if you are interested.

By the way, I have found that we have had much better results using salted bait rather than fresh bait, but have also heard it said that a rag soaked in WD40 will attract shellfish to a creel :?:

Some pics would be good. It's always nice to see other peoples gear. I've only got a small boat so I use the fold down net type so I can fit more in. https://secure.hitechdata.net/nylon...d=19&subcat=53&cat=Collapsible+Fish+TrapsAlot I use the ones like the FT-D but not as expensive. The locals said the fold down ones aren’t any good when I first walked up with them. But for me a part time potter they are just the thing. I've kept them out in bad weather caught them on rocks and they are still going fine after three years.

I'll have to give the salt fish a go. The only advice I was really given by the locals when I started was to use white fish as bait instead of oily fish as oily fish it attracts all sorts into the pot. Which I don’t mind really as its always exciting wondering what’s in the pot when you pull them up. Not had any sea urchins though.
What I normally do for bait is go to the fish mongers at the end of the day and collect the waste bag of heads guts etc and bag it up in tights and freeze so I’m ready to go then I’ll collect any bait then as I need it when i'm out.

When the spiders go soft shell and come into shore early summer it's always worth collecting one and putting it in the pot as bass love them when they are soft. I didn’t get one last year but a bloke I knew caught a whopper of a Bass this way.
Cuttle fish are ******s to get in the pot I have used old CD's hanging up inside to attract them in before, but once you have got one keep him in the pot and he will attract others in. I've had one small cuttlefish turn into six big ones in half hour before.


Den