Starting your net

Description

Start your net using the chain start method

Tags: Pathfinder Youth,net making,gill net,chain start

Video Transcription

afternoon this is Allen start with the National Pass front of you Earth Organization and this is another video in a series on net making in this video I'm going to show you how to start a net and work on the body of your net the method I'm going to show you is the change start method basically this method makes the body of the net before you attach it to anything else whether it be a cast net a landing net a dip net whether it be a person at whether it be a live capture net whether it be a snapping turtle net trap or a lobster net trap you use the same techniques and any of those nets so that is why I decided to go ahead and show you this method first this is what method I teach most of the students that I teach most of the kids and adults this is the method I teach them first after we go over tools and equipment further this would be the best place to start the first thing you want to do is pull some blind off of your needle

and the needle I'm using today is not the one that we made out in the field this is a commercially made needle it already has cords on it so that's what we're going to use I'm going to use my favorite mesh cage my two inch mesh gauge and we are using number 12 bank line now normally in class I like to use number six bank line non tarde because it's it's this little rough on the fingers when you're tying hundreds of knots your fingers get a little rough after a while you need some little softer such as Mason line I like to use it a lot when I'm practicing or giving a class this here will give you all the problems that you would have working with the normal cordage because it likes to twist a lot and bind up and it gives them an opportunity to work out problems one thing to keep in mind for Bank line is it does have a tar smell so for those of you are going to make like a person that or live capture type net this does have a strong smell so if your bait doesn't ever power it then you may have an issue with the animals that have a good sense of smell that won't come towards your trap I find that if you smoke it over the fire leave it out in the weather it gets softer because it's line is stiff and it takes away some of the tart smell that's or any thing that tar does is stops it from rotting that I find you can use mason line it doesn't rot but it will soak up water so it will get heavy this won't I take that back this one will not soak up that much water I mean it will get a little bit of water but nothing major like this is pretty much waterproof so enough about line first thing you want to do to start this method is to determine what size mesh you're going to incorporate into your net this is a two inch mesh gauge you can use depending on what you're trying to catch you need to make sure you have the proper proper size gauge if you want to get for squirrels and things small like that you're going to need at least an edge or inch and a half two inches the little big rabbits 2 inches is pushing it I like to go inch and 3/4 but two inches of standard for anything pretty much so enough of that first thing you want to do is take your cordage and wrap it around your gauge twice and then tie it off right here I'll go ahead and do that now one thing you keep in mind make sure this is not a slip knot I personally like to use a surgeon's knot today's you don't know what a surgeon's knot is the same knot they use when they're doing suture they'll go over to play that's how I tie my shoes as well he'll go over twice I pull it up to the end this is where I need that little light Steve's got come in handy he just shown one of his your videos I tie it twice or go over twice and then go ahead and do another overhand to lock it down and that pretty much stops it from becoming a slip knot which is what you don't want remove it test it make sure it's not a slip knot so you end up just don't have to be perfect because you will be removing this

later most of the books show you leave it on there but I find that it has a tendency to not be the right length once you get started because the next step you have to be pretty precise in your calculation or it'll throw you off so next thing you want to do is attach this to an anchor point whether it be a stick a nail whatever you want to do just make sure this is spent I'm using a split ring attached to a vise up on the end of the counter lock it into place make sure she's good secure you want to make sure this can spend once you have your once you have your anchor point or your cordage attached to your anchor point and it spins freely next thing you want to do grab your appropriate mesh cage place it on the bottom cordage on top take your needle run it through the loop that you just put on your anchor point make sure you go underneath make sure I don't know if I mentioned that or not let me share that again message on the bottom needle comes from the Bott around the bottom of your mesh gauge goes through your loop pull that down toast you snug then reach up and pull your loop until your knot is halfway between your anchor point and your message make sure that's not is halfway between your anchor point in your message this will split this 4-inch loop into two inch sections it will come clear here in just a minute I have another message and I'm going to go ahead and measure make sure that I'm close because we'll be removing this later I find it easier to do that then you try to get this perfect you'll just remove this later take that out of the equation now as you can see here I have three strings now throughout this video I will say things like go behind to go behind one go behind three and what that means is when I say go behind two that means you'll have two pieces of cordage on top one underneath if I say go behind one or go under one you'll go on you'll have one string on top I'd say go into three you'll have three on top so keep that in mind next thing you're gonna want to do is take your cordage and put it over the back of your hand so as you can see now this is running from the bottom of my thumb and looping around over top of my hand on the back of it one thing I forgot to mention is when you pull this down tight

you'll pinch with your thumb to hold it and keep everything tight now next thing we're going to do next step is to go ahead and do a double sheet bed or a variance of a double sheet Bend I believe there's this is a modified version of a double sheet Bend if I'm not mistaken I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure it is but nevertheless you don't want to take your your needle and you're going to want to go behind - you see I've got two two pieces of cordage on top pull that through poor tight and pull it up a little bit and then you'll go behind one which essentially is through the loop and you'll pull this down now make sure that when you're pulling this you do not lift your thumb you leave your thumb tight let the not slip underneath

and then remove your Maki what you have done is created your first loop no we're off to a slow start but make sure everybody gets this now normally you would be tying a single sheet Bend but I find that for man-made materials a double sheet Bend is better for natural fibers such as hemp rope you can do a single a single sheet Bend is also known as a Becket not a Weaver's hitch and a Weaver's not Manor sheet Bend I'll show you on the next one why we don't do a sheet Bend make sure your loop is on the right hand side when you start your next one mesh gauge on the bottom reach up from behind grab your loop pull it until your until your loop touches the top of your mesh cage now take and pinch it with your thumb so it will not move throw the cordage over the back of your hand take your needle and for a single sheet bed you will go behind to and you will cool down now the reason you don't do this is because of this right here as you can see it slides if you don't get this not to pinch up around the top that's why when you're pinching your cordage you got to make sure that it's pinched tight a single sheet bin will work on this but over time it will come loose that's why I prefer the double sheet Bend less chance of it coming apart so go ahead and show this to you again using the proper knot the double sheet Bend cordage on top mosquito on the bottom reach underneath grab your cordage make sure it touches the top of your gauge the camera will focus I'll be alright don't look like it's focusing properly for me throw the cordage over the top of your hand take your needle and go behind to immediately come around and go behind one

now remember don't lift your thumb let do not slide underneath to pull your refuge out just give it a quick tug and you're not your loop will automatically go to the right-hand side if it doesn't just make it go over there we'll do one more and then I'll go ahead and do some off-camera so you don't want to stay here and watch me make a whole chain of these now one thing you have to keep in mind is what you're creating with this chain because you're creating the first two top rows of your net this is I get this done here I will explain to you with a small calculation how you can determine how many meshes you need for a certain length net as you can see here I have a 4-inch loop so we can use this one here I'll explain it to you as you can see this is what's called a mesh you eventually have another knot over here so this will be a full mesh or here as you can see my 2 inch gauge fits perfect around the edges that's 2 inch and it would be 2 inches here but from this point this point is 4 inches now let's say for example you want a 10 foot nap for some reason a 10 foot net using the stretched mesh measurement of 4 inches means that they will be three meshes per foot which means you will need 30 meshes for a 10 foot net using the stretch mesh and that's basically what I teach them when they're calculating now if you go with the relaxed mesh which would be 2 inches wide you actually lose about an edge so it's about 3 inches if you're going to use this calculation that means there's 4 meshes per foot so you'll need 40 meshes now I'll go ahead and pull this off and show you what you're actually creating it's the top of your net the top of your net is the first two rotors that you've created on the top of your net this will be the top this will be the bottom as you can see I have an uneven number I have five meshes when you're creating your chain you want to make sure you stick with an even number at all times because you want to have the same amount on top and the same amount on the bottom if you have it like this you'll have one extra on top and it'll stick an ear out there because you're actually your metal actually be coming down this way and you'll have an extra ear so keep that in mind make sure you go with an even number of meshes but also the other fact you have to keep in mind I know I said you had to do 40 meshes for a ten-foot net I'm sorry 30 messages for a 10-foot net when it's stretched the problem with just going thirty meshes is that you're only doing half as you can see how I've done five meshes but I'm only three meshes long so when you determine how many meshes you'll need for your ten-foot net you'll need to double that because you're actually doing the top and the bottom I hope that made sense so you've made your calculation at the four inch stretch mesh measurement you decided a ten-foot net I means you'll need there's three meshes per foot that means you'll need thirty meshes but you need to double that because you're actually going the top and the bottom so you're only going to have half on top and the other half will be on the bottom so you'll need to do sixty meshes for a ten-foot net I hope that made sense if not I can try to explain that a little better if you have a question comments because if you just do thirty meshes you're going to end up with fifty measures on the top and fifty meshes on the second row you won't actually have thirty meshes on your top row so I'm going to go ahead and do some more until we get quite a few here so I can show you what we need to do next remember MSG starts on the bottom quarters on top go underneath grab your loot the cordage over the top of your hand

such go behind to pull it up go behind one which will give you a double sheet Bend where a variance of a double sheet pension I believe a double sheet bag if I'm not mistaken would be good behind two and then go behind two again when you pull that down at double wraps around your loop so the problem I have with that is this not going actually through your loop so it's not allowing you to capture your loop so that's why they say to go between the loops between your loop go behind one there's another technique of doing the double sheet Bend without having to throw it over your gage hand you throw it over your needle hand where you would take and step throwing it over this hand you will just take this and go like this and then you would do your thing and you would pull it through I'll show you that one here next because when your door say a cast net or you're doing a large net you're going to be doing thousand knots you don't want to keep trying to flip over your hand so one last time mesh gauge on the bottom reach up grab your now step throwing over the back of your hand the cordage will be pulled like this you just spin your hand out in one smooth motion all the same time very easy to do once it's stretched out then you just come up as you can see it's over the back of my hand go behind to anything you want to make sure you don't go over the back side you want to go in between this loop and then go behind one and when you pull through you just pull your hand and everything right out that's the way I like to do it normally if I have a lot of room now throwing it over the back of your hand you can do that with a very short string the other way you have to have a little more cordage sticking out I can do it just a little bit of cordage sticking out I'll show you that you don't have to have a tremendous amount of cordage sticking out to be a little more than that but I can be very little cordage I don't have to have a massive amount of cordage out like you do with the other one you at least need twice as much to throw of your needle hand than you do selling over your gauging all right so we're pretty much Don Archie for for this demonstration I'll go ahead and remove it and see how many we actually have and then I'll get the camera set up and show you what we're going to do next alright I went ahead and removed it from the anchor point it was attached here now this is not a very long chain but grayness is a demonstration I'm not going to do 8080 meshes for demonstration bank line gets expensive I'm using the bank line basically because it shows up better on the desk where I'd use my wait mates in line so you need to make sure that you count your rows with you if you don't know how many message you've done I have one two three four five six on top one two three four five on the bottom that gives me an uneven number and then how you determine what your top row is and your bottom row is or your top row and your your top row yes your working end needs to be on the bottom you can see here it is attached to my needle it has to be on the bottom and on your left because when you're at at when you're working on your net the body of your net you always work from left to right if you're right-handed anytime you're working with a mesh gauge you always work from left to right when working on the body of your net now if you're attaching or starting in that by attaching to a head rope or to a ring of some sort then you will work from right to left

using your mesh gauge but when working on the body and just the body you'll work from left to right that's why you make sure you have it on the left and to determine what your top row is you make sure that your working end is on the bottom now make it more complicated if you're actually repairing in that you don't use the mesh gauge you don't use the mesh cage when you're building in that when you're repairing a net or patching in that then you would work from right to left and you would not use a mesh gauge coming in confuse you so basically make sure the two points is to make sure that you have an even amount of rows for your top and for your first and second row being your top row and make sure that it's on the bottom and you're left now as you can see I've got too many I have six on the top five on the bottom I did that on purpose because I always remove that first one that big forms one that we did this is that knot right here that I tied when I first wrapped it around I always remove that and there's a reason for that you can leave it on but you'll find you'll find that when you're doing your net and you get to your next row this one will probably be a little too long I've removed this one because it's not is not the strongest knot and you don't want any weak points in your net so I always just remove it and that puts my start knot

on the top which is what you want to have an even number you'll have your beginning not on the top and you're finishing not on the bottom or your needle is now just go ahead and remove that now you can see I've got a double sheet Bend here and throughout the rest that 100 square knots or no granny knots or nothing like that now at this point you can determine how you want to attach your net to continue working on the body of your net you can use a piece of quarter to a most of you will have most of you will not have a split ring there are specialty item you can pick them up all the supply stores I believe might have them leather places have them you can buy them online I like them because I can separate them and put different meshes in depending on what configuration I'm doing so attaching your ring is the same thing as attaching your cordage through you're going to need to run your quarters through the top row of meshes to continue working on the body originally you started like this and you did the top row of meshes now you're going to work this way and work on the body of your net and this will be as long as you make it be a hundred meshes long for doing a long net or a cast net speaking of cast net this method is good for creating a seamless loop and how you do that is this will probably be you'll probably have 30 meshes or be 60 meshes you will create and all this is a little short to do this but I can demonstrate it

to make a seamless loop to attach to your horn for a cat's net you would attach you're working in from your needle to here to 2 inch mark then you will bring it over or to your middle point which you need to find you will stretch this out and if it's longer it's not bad you will find this point here you will attach it here and then you will come back down and you will attach it to this so essentially this will go here and then back here and that will create your seamless loop for attach door horn that's why this chain start method is so good for so many different style nets because you can also do that with the seamless loop do we create a round net then you would attach this by tying them all together with the string and then you would work on the body of your net and create your dip net where your rabid net whatever you want to do if you're making a tube that a rabbit net you would just join the top and I'll show you how to do that here in just second so we're getting ready to do so if I'm not confusing anybody the next thing you're going to want to do is I want to use the split ring just like using the cordage pretend this is the end of your cordage remember it's on the bottom and on the left you will pick up the first one put it over top of your or put your cordage through or over top of your ring pick up the next one and you just keep going down the line now using the ring for a chain that has 100 loops 100 meshes will really work you'll never fit them all on there but for this demonstration we can do that now we're locked into place as you can see that I've missed one some house you have to be careful off make sure you get every single one there you can see I want to start working on the body of my net now if I were to add let's say another three times this amount say I had 17 messages across the top I could have a complete loop to go all the way around but I'm starting in to stuff it we're not trying to cover in this video so the next thing you would do whether it be like this or whether you would have your string through it and hung up let me demonstrate that as well I can just pick this up like this to run my head rope through well if I explain what a head road was the head rope would be the rope that you put between two anchor points like such and your net would be strung up between it like such yes it is loose on there but there is a knot that you tie all nice to get these where you want them or if you have it loose there's a technique for leaving your net loose when you stretch it across the stream you can pull your net in you only have to go on the water once and after that you pull your net back to you

I believe critter did a video on that where you shoot it at the gathering how you do a I called Amish clothesline and have your fishing line attached to it and you would pull it across the creek and you only have to go on watching check your your efficient hooks and your beat same thing with the net I'll show a video on that later as well so now that I've rambled on let's work on the body of our net remember I'm working on the left I'm going to the right so the first thing you're going to do is you're going to take your needle and you're going to do the same thing you did before there's no there's only one difference when working on the body and doing the chain is you do not remove your mesh gauge between each one you leave it on there then you grab your next mesh that's next to it

back of the hand behind to behind one which is through the loop and you're ready to grab your next one grab your next loop pull that down now as you can see I just have to if you move these out of the way though zoom in a little bit so basically what you're going to do is you want to go behind your loop which would be a single sheet Bend or if you go behind one or through the loop you have one on top that creates a double my clip came undone reach out grab your next one pull it now now let's say if your net is 20 feet long you would go in till you fill your mesh gauge up then you would slide it off

slide your meshes off and then you would continue behind to behind one and you would slide them off and then you would pick up and keep going and you have your completed measures on this side done as you can see I'm I've ended on the right hand side and pain in mind to these overlapping because you are going to stretch your net net once you're done you will take your net and you will stretch it and you won't have to worry about them overlap they usually only overlap on the road you just completed up here they're not overlapping I've ended on the right now with the pivot point that I have I can flip my net over and continue going this be the same thing with a purse net because this basically is how a person that starts it's anchored at the front and then you work your way out but you would permanently attached to a ring such as this and we'll get into that later I won't do a video on that as well and if you're working with a head rope where it's tied you just walk to the opposite side if you're over here and you've ended on the right you walk to the other side you're automatically starting on the left again so I'm going to go ahead and do one more row and I think we'll end the video here mesh these on the bottom

pull it down till she snug pinch it with your thumb the cordage over the back of your hand back your hand go behind to lift up go behind one pull that down normally you want to lift your thumb up I'm usually lifting up because if I not my ring pulls apart because I don't have an anchor properly a ring is good for just gathering up your net you could I'd normally just tie a piece of cordage through there and attach it but I don't have the room to do that here on this desk so I'm doing what I want to have available to me a ring is good for holding your net up off the ground if you have a long net you can attach a ring attached piece of cord to it and it will actually hold your net up off the ground while you're working behind - now you must keep in mind that this is not the only way to do it net you can do this without a mesh gauge I do it a lot I will show a video on how to create a net without a mesh gauge using your fingers and using the old netting not the old netting not this is not that still use but it is it's been around forever this double sheet Bend I don't believe has been it's not the proper well I guess you could say it is but for a fishing not it's different I will show a video on using the old fishing old netting not think it's called the old netting knot then there's the old fishing not I will go over that in a video after we get done all the basics I will go over some more the advanced techniques such as using just your fingers and using the old netting knot I've created another row alright as you can see I've got quite a few done I'll go ahead and remove it from the ring and spread it out so you can see it now you see our net has changed originally our net was stretched this way which was the doing the movie that our chain and then we changed directions and we started going down which created the body of our net this video was just demonstrating how to start your net using a chain start method and now to work on the body of the net because working on any net that you're going to be using whether it be a fishnet or Gill net which would be catching the fish by their gills or an entanglement net where just captures the fish whether it be a cast net which is actually a gathering type net or a snapping turtle net trap or be a round net for making a landing or dip net you use the same technique that I showed you here to work on the body of any of those Nets

this is good practice just to work on making a net you can make using the same techniques you can make a bottle holder bottle carriers you can make a pack you can make a hammock using all the same techniques now in the next video I will show you how to increase and decrease your meshes because you will need to know that for creating a person that or a live capture net you will need to have depth to your net and to create depth you will need to learn how to increase and decrease meshes that means adding extra meshes in and taking away meshes I will also show you how to once you've run out of cordage or your needle how to tie into your net so it looks presentable and it's strong and then I believe the next video after that I will show how to make a live capture net or a person at a rabbet net or any kind of snare type net I will show how to use that using using a ring you don't have to use a ring you can make a grommet out of cordage I don't know if I showed that in a previous video or not how to make that or even if I talked about it but I'll show you how to make a grommet and also and how to attach to that or not even use the ring and just use cordage to accomplish the same task but you'll need to know how to increase and decrease meshes and put new cordage into your net to make a person at or a rabbit net so I hope I didn't bore you I hope this you learned something from this so this has been a lothario pathfinding youth organization and I will see on the next one