Along the Medway estuary, although no extensive finds such has been found on the Blackwater, references to 'fish factories' are included in the Domesday Book. A typical cross-section of a fish trap. It is likely that the trap was flat bottomed to allow it to lie on the river or sea bed without rolling with the current or tide. For eels it would need to be baited with a dead fish, this would attract the carnivorous eel into the funnel and once inside, they would find it difficult to escape. The traps themselves would be made from willow 'withies' that had been cultivated for at least three years.
Today there are withy beds in the Southwest that produce willow withies in white, buff and brown.
White withies are produced by stripping the bark away, the buff has been boiled with its bark on and then the bark then removed and the browns are the withies complete with bark. To weave the withies they would need to be soaked so as to make them pliable, they would need to be left to soak overnight to enable the surface water to penetrate to the pith of each withy. Fish Spears Fishing spears from the Castle Gardens Museum, York. A number of fishing spears has been identified from the period and these have taken a number of different styles. The type of fishing that would have taken place with the use of spears would have involved the larger top-feeding fish and mammals.