This manual could not have been written without the special help given to me by Mr Joel Prado, Fishery Industry Officer, FAO Fishery Technology Service (FIIT) and Mr Richard Mounsey, Senior Gear Technologist, Fisheries Division, Northern Territory Department of Primary Industry and Fisheries. To both, I offer a special personal thanks.
Thanks are also due to Mr J MacCartie, from the Northern Territory Fisheries Division, and the people who contributed information that has been included in the manual. These include: K. Aitken from the Caribbean; L. Basso, P. Fontaine, M. Boudreau and M. Monette from Quebec; A. Gonzales, L. Cardenas and R. Fernandez from Cuba; M. Okawra, P. Masthawee, S. Sae-Ung, S. Ananpongsuk and J. Fukui from the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Centre (SEAFDEC); T. H. Kim from the Republic of Korea; and D. Furevik and S. P. Hågensen from Norway.
Many of the illustrations have been based on diagrams and figures provided by the above people and on the illustrations of fishing gear in the FAO catalogue of small-scale fishing gear, second edition and the FAO catalogue of fishing gear designs.
Coonamessett Farm, Massachusetts, USA also kindly provided a drawing.