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Towing a large net behind a fishing boat is the oldest and most common method of catching fish. A boat simply pulls one or two large nets behind it, either across the seabed (beam trawling) or at a set depth (bottom trawling). Beam trawling is used to target bottom-feeding fish like plaice, Dover sole and, in deeper waters, monkfish and prawns. Bottom trawling, where the net is pulled above the seabed, targets shoals of mackerel, sea bass, cod, haddock and whiting. Bottom dredging is also used to catch scallops, where the boat drags a metal mesh with a net behind it across the ground. This forces the scallops in the sand to jump up into the water; they are then caught in the nets behind.

Fishermen use sonar equipment as well as their own knowledge to target large shoals of a specific fish, but in the process they can’t help but pull in other species. If there is no quota for these fish they have to be thrown back into the sea. There are controls on the size of the nets the boats can use and the size of the holes in the net to allow smaller fish to escape. These boats will often be at sea for a few days, selecting, cleaning and storing their catch in ice before sailing back to the fish markets when they are full.