(Also 8 trowl, 9 troll.) [Goes with TRAWL sb. q.v.: cf. MDu. traghelen to drag, f. traghel.]
1. intr. To fish with a net the edge of which is dragged along the bottom of the sea to catch the fish living there, esp. flat-fish; to fish with a trawl-net or in a trawler.
1561. Eden, Arte Nauig., Pref. ¶ iv b. Certayne Fyshermen that go a trawlyng for fyshe in catches or mongers.
1630. in Descr. Thames (1758), 77. No Trawler that … doth use to Trawl to take Soal, Chates, Plaice or Thorn-back.
1778. Eng. Gazetteer (ed. 2), s.v. Rye, All the rest of the year they trowl for soles, plaise,… brills, &c.
1822. W. Robinson, in J. A. Heraud, Voy. & Mem. Midshipm., v. (1837), 9. We managed to trawl several times in going over these banks.
1866. Daily Tel., 16 Jan., 7/4. To think that … Columbus, in his most famous voyage of discovery, commanded a craft no bigger than the lugger in which the Brighton fisherman goes out trawling!
b. To drag or dredge: cf. DRAG v. 7 b.
1861. Stockton Times, 15 Nov. The body was being trawled for on Saturday.
c. trans. To fish over (a ground) with a trawl-net; in quot. fig.
1906. Academy, 10 Feb., 136/1. Mr. Macmichael has trawled every source of information.
2. intr. To drag a seine-net behind and about a shoal of herring, etc., in order to drive, enclose, and catch them. (Also trans. with the net as obj.: see quots.)
1864. Glasgow Daily Herald, 24 Sept. Trawling went on in this loch without much objection till the trawlers went into the narrow waters above Otter Spit. If trawling was to be allowed inshore they would trawl out.
1880. Chambers’s Encycl., IX. 525/1. The term trawling is commonly, although incorrectly, employed in Scotland to designate a particular mode of herring-fishing, which, however, is only seine-net fishing … on the principle of encircling shoals of fish, as has been practised in pilchard-fishing on the south coast of England from time immemorial.
1887. Fisheries U.S., Sect. V. II. 306. The net used for driving is 200 fathoms long, 8 fathoms deep, with meshes 6 inches square, made of 9-yarn rope…. The net is trawled behind and about the herd [of seals] so as to drive them into the fiord and keep them there. Sometimes they rush under or over the net.
3. trans. To catch or take with a trawl or trawl-net. Hence Trawled ppl. a.
1864. Glasgow Daily Herald, 24 Sept. I have seen the curers anxious to get the trawled herring.
1864. Rep. Sea Fisheries Comm. (1865), II. 1188/1. I believe I got the second shot of trawled fish that was ever fished in this country.
1883. Fisheries Exhib. Catal. (ed. 4), 175. Swatching and Trolling Old Hoods [seals].
1890. Philos. Mag., Ser. V. Aug., 199. A specimen of Triassic conglomerate trawled seven miles south of the Deadman headland.
1906. Daily Chron., 15 Oct. 6/2. The steam trawler Herbert Ingram has landed at Boston a Royal sturgeon, which weighed 20 st…. It was trawled up in the North Sea.
¶ 4. Often confounded with trowl, TROLL v. (q.v.).
The following quot. appears to be the earliest instance of this confusion.
1701. Cowel’s Interpr., s.v. Trawlermen, Hence to trowle or trawle with a Trowling-line for Pikes.
