PEARL-FISHING

Photos of Pearl Fishing equipment.

Video of Pearl fishing

Pearl fishing is a skilled operation – it is removing pearls from mussel shells. There are still pearls in many rivers in Scotland, but pearl-fishing became illegal and the mussels declared an endangered species due to pollution, the effects of acid rain and over fishing. Mussels live to over 100 years but pearls obtained from very old mussels are not generally of good quality. Mussels between the ages of ten and fifty normally yield the best pearls.

What they did…
They used to go in the summer to a nice camp beside a river. They wore waders so that they wouldn’t get wet and made a long stick with a split on the end so that they could hook the shell on the end. They would make a bag with a strap to put over your shoulder and made a pair of tongs out of pliers to open the shell without killing it.

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