Long seine nets were used to encircle fish in lakes. This required a crew of several men and is seldom used today. Three to four men, one of whom leased fishing rights to a lake, worked a seine for a daily wage or for a percentage of the profits. They used five-horsepower outboard motors to lay out lines and the seine, which could be a large as 225 feet wide and from 6 to 14 feet deep.
Cork floats bouyed the top edge at three-foot intervals, and lead weights anchored the bottom edge at about sixteen-inch intervals. From their boat, the fishermen slowly dragged the seine along and gathered it up. The seines caught everything in the water too large to slip through, which helped lead to the depletion of the breeding stock of backwater lakes.
The largest harvests were seined during the winter under the ice. After hauling in the seine, the fishermen moved the fish to live boxes, checked for holes in the netting, repaired them, and refolded the seine.
