So you want to go fishing along the coast using a horse and cart. Today you will be gathering cockles and mussels along the sands and can have a go at cart shanking.
Cart shanking and tractor fishing is carried out all along the coast. Nets are attached to a cart that is pulled through the shallows. Rich catches of flukes (flounder) and shrimps can be achieved. Often, there is a real danger of losing both horse and cart in the channels and quicksands. This is also true of tractor fishing, which is now done instead, and there is a greater risk associated with higher speeds through the shallows and work further offshore.
Fish baulk
Stake-netting
Fishing using fish traps was once widely practised around the coast. Rich catches of salmon, herring, flukes and many other types of fish could be caught in baulks on the foreshore off Morecambe, Heysham and around the Lune estuary. It was an easy way to catch fish. On the ebb tide they were funnelled along 'hedges' (wooden and stone-built walls) into net cages or isolated pools, then simply gathered up and taken away. The catches were frequently so big that carts were needed to take the catch to market. Stake nets are similar in their purpose and are used to trap fish or catch them in the long nets stretched over the sands on small stakes.
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