The North Atlantic Fisheries, 1100-1976 - University of Hull

Lolland-Falster. In 1771, fishing in these areas had been negligible, but
in 1873 every fourth fisher family was located by these shores. The main
fishing tackle of these fishermen was the pound net, used for plaice and
cod.
We know the broad outlines of the success of the pound net. In the
1790s and early 1800s private sponsors and state officials had
encouraged a number of Zealand fishermen to adopt the herring pound
net as used in the Limfiord, and they seem to have won some support.
Then by 1825 the Limfiord fisheries experienced an ecological disaster
when the sand barrier to the west once again succumbed to a North Sea
storm, and the incoming salt water killed the stock of fiord herring. In
the 1830s and 1840s there was a veritable diaspora of Limfiord
fishermen who brought their nets to all the inner nooks of the Kattegat
and the Baltic. They were the ones mainly responsible for the success of
the pound net when they discovered that the technology might also, with
slight modifications, be used for catching cod and plaice. However, the
success would never have occurred unless a new market organisation had
developed.
Already by 1750, Bornholm fishmongers were carrying live cod in
special well-boats to the Copenhagen fish market to obtain good prices.
After 1814, they began buying live fish from North Jutland to
supplement their own catches, but they soon discovered that the pound
netters were able to serve them. From around 1840, South Funen
skippers also participated in this trade which may be considered the first
truly national fish marketing organisation. The live transportation of the
fish secured the best prices for the fishermen, and thus was the first step
taken in the modernisation of the fisheries. For the first time in centuries,
fishermen were earning good money and a century of expansion of
Danish fishing could begin.
THE BREAKTHROUGH OF THE DANISH SEINE FISHERY, 1850-1950
In 1848, farmer-fisherman Jens Laursen Væver first deployed the anchor
seine from a boat. Using his method, fishermen in the Limfiord
recovered from the loss of the fresh-water herring stock when they
discovered a plentiful stock of plaice had settled in the by now salty
water of the fiord. Government officials were concerned that the gear
was too efficient and restricted its use by the first fisheries act passed by
Danish parliament in 1857. By 1870 most officials agreed that the culling
of stocks increased the productivity of the sea, and in the next two
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