page_title: Scottish east coast fishery
section_title: Bottom trawling – single boat
hierarchical_section_title: Scottish east coast fishery / Fishing boat development / Fishing for demersal species (fish occurring near the seabed) / Bottom trawling – single boat
caption_attribution_description: Drawing of trawling
context_page_description: The Scottish east coast fishery has been in existence for more than a thousand years, spanning the Viking Age right up to the present day.
context_section_description: This the commonest of the towed fishing gear; it is also known as "otter trawling".  Trawl nets are shaped like a funnel with the sides extended ahead to guide the fish into the net.  Otter boards (sometimes called "doors") spread the towing wires and keep the net open horizontally.  The mouth of the net is held open vertically by the use of floats attached to the headline, while weight distributed along the ground rope allows the net to make good contact with the sea floor.  The otter boards would scrape along the seabed making noises that attract fish.  The fish would congregate between the boards keeping up with them until they tired and the net would then overtake them.  This method is used mainly to catch the demersal species such as cod, haddock, whiting and flatfish.  The boats themselves can be less than 10 metres in length for inshore fishing to 60 metres or more for deep sea fishing.
  
  With the decline in the volumes of roundfish, the growth in fishing for high-priced species such as monkfish and flatfish is being seen.  In this case, scraper trawls are used.   The nets are shaped differently with a lower headline, longer wings allowing a greater area to be swept.
caption: Method of towing
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