Phase 01 — First days: water, fire, shelter / About year 1
01.17
Tidal stone fish trap ⚠
a low wall that strands fish at low tide
AWhat it needs
Needs 1 other product.
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- 01.17 Tidal stone fish trap ⚠Food Year 1 needs 1 product
- 01.01 Base camp siteHome Year 1 raw materials only
Open a box to see what it needs. A dashed box is a product already drawn in full: click it to jump there. In the org chart, drag to move around.
BWhy
The sea does the fishing. Fish swim in over a low wall when the tide is high and are left behind it when the tide goes out. Once built, the trap feeds the camp twice a day for almost no work.
CYou need
- A gently sloping stony shore inside a bay or beside a creek mouth, a short walk from the camp (01.01)
- Several hundred stones, from head-sized to fist-sized, lying on the same shore
- Bare hands
DSteps
- Watch one full tide first. Push a stick into the sand at the highest water and another at the lowest.
- Choose the line of the wall between the two sticks, where the ground is under about chest-deep water at high tide and nearly dry at low tide.
- At low tide, mark a curve on the ground, forty to fifty paces long, bulging toward the sea, with both ends running up the shore past the half-tide line.
- Lay the biggest stones along the curve, two side by side, bedded firmly into the sand.
- Build up from there with no gaps bigger than a fist, each stone sitting across the join of the two below. Fill the cracks with small stones. Water must drain through; fish must not.
- Make the wall knee-high at the ends and waist-high in the middle, with the top level all along, so the sea covers it by about a forearm's depth at high tide.
- At the lowest point leave a gap one stride wide. Close it with stakes pushed into the sand a finger apart. The last water runs out here and the fish gather in front of it.
- As the tide rises, scatter crushed shellfish and crab inside the curve as bait.
- When the tide has gone out, take the fish by hand, club (01.16) or spear, from the pool behind the wall.
- Put the small ones back. Mend fallen stones after every storm.
EIt worked if
- At low tide there are fish in the pool that could not get out, and the pool is no deeper than the shin.
FWhat goes wrong
- Nothing is caught. The wall is too high for fish to swim over at high tide, or too low to hold them. Check its top against the high-water stick.
- The pool does not drain. The wall is too tight. Open a few gaps near the bottom.
- A storm flattens it. The base stones were too small. Rebuild with the biggest stones at the bottom and a wider base.
- Fish rot in the sun. The trap was not emptied at low tide. Someone visits it at every low tide, day and night.
GSafety
- Know when the tide turns and leave before it does. Work the far end first.
- Cook everything. Leave shellfish alone when the sea is discoloured red or brown.
HIn the story
Tane has said since the landing that the sea would feed them, and on the third day he asks for everyone at once. Luca takes over the laying of the wall, loudly, because it is stone. On the next tide there are forty fish behind it, and the hunger of the first days is over.
IFigures
