How to Use a Beach Seine Net to Catch Small Fish

A seine net is a vertical net with floats at the top and weights at the bottom, which is used to surround all fish in an area. Beach seines are small, deployed by hand, and designed for use from near a shore. In contrast to cast nets, which are useful for capturing schools of small fish that you can already see from the surface and are a popular way to catch bait for fishing, a beach seine net will capture all fish within its bounds, schooling or otherwise, whether you can see them or not. This makes them more useful for science education purposes.

While you can use a beach seine net for bait fishing, you do have to get into the water. Cast nets take a bit more skill to deploy but the advantage is you stay dry on land, and each deployment is faster.

Regardless of purposes, check into fishing permits before you start to make sure whatever you're doing is legal.

Things You'll Need

A beach seine net

Two people, one of whom will be up to waist deep in the water. The wader should wear good close-toed shoes or dive boots or other similar footwear, in case of sharp items underwater.

Some small dip nets

A bucket to hold captured fish live

If this is for educational purposes, fish identification guides. Any fish not intended for a permanent collection can be released afterward.

Step One

Pick a relatively cleared part of the shoreline to deploy the net. A small beach or sandbar works best.

While one person stands on shore at one end of the area, holding one end of the net, the other person wades straight out with the other end, as far as the net will go. Make sure that the net's weights are touching the bottom so that nothing can escape from underneath.

Step Two

Once the beach seine net is properly stretched out, the wader walks slowly parallel to the shore until they reach the other end of the area of interest, then walks back in to shore. The net should make a roughly U-shape in the water.

Step Three

Once the wader is back ashore, both people slowly drag the beach seine net out of the water a little at a time, making sure the weights drag on the bottom. All the fish will be forced up on shore where they can be captured individually with dip nets.

Seine Nets vs. Gill Nets

Gill nets are another type of vertical net with floats at the top and weights at the bottom. The difference between a seine net and a gill net is the size of the netting mesh and how they catch the fish. The hole size of a gill net is large enough for a fish to fit its head through, but not all the way. Gill nets rely on mid-sized, strong swimming fish to swim into the net without seeing it and get caught by their gills. The design of a seine net is to actively catch the fish, while gill nets fish passively (you set it up and wait a while, then see what got stuck in it). Another difference is where you set the net - beach seine nets are deployed from shore, while gill nets are usually set up out a ways, with a boat. (Or, if it's a larger seine net like a purse seine, you generally drive the boat around in a circle.)

Gill nets are illegal in a lot of places for the vast majority of uses (inhumane, bird and turtle bycatch, etc). Check the local fisheries regulations before using them.