This run, I have a bunch of questions because I've been reading. Well, I read this little thing and I read this bunch of things over oh in the University of Florida library about shrimping. So um, I want to ask you several questions 1st about your family and your history um yourself and them some general?

About net making, how to do it and all of that. This afternoon I'm gonna just come back and take some pictures while you all are working. But first of all for the record this is July 11, 1980 and I'm at Fernandina Beach at the Net Shop and oh by the Standard Hardware store, right?

Gotta always put that on the tape. O.K. For the tape can you tell me your name and where you were born?

My name is Billy Burbank, III. I was born in Fernandina Beach, Florida, October 2, 1951.

Now tell me something about your grandfather, William Burbank.

Well, my grandfather was born on Cumberland island which is in Georgia. He started shrimping oh back in his early years when he was 15-16 years old. He got into the shrimp business, oh just starting shrimping and started making his own nets.

And when oh his nets seemed to out produce everybody else's nets. Then everybody decided to get him to make their nets and then that's when we got started in the net business in about 1915 and been in it ever since.

Well, Fernandina ah seemed to be a you know good little port for fishing and what have you fish market. In fact along with his net business and his fishing he had a fish market, too on the side.

Pretty busy, well were his nets a different design? Is that why people liked them?

Not really, they used basically just one type of design back in those days. You know, what they called flat net and oh.

A flat net is just a type of shrimp net, its just one of the many types that we have now. It was probably one of the first ones that anybody started shrimping with. Just a basic design a funnel shape net is all it was.

And oh, they just seemed to like the way his fished and then as years progressed and got more and more into net making his self. Then he started having

(phone ringing) variations of one type after the other.

Then they went into what they call 4 seam balloon net, 2 seam balloon net and from there on, just many, many different patterns, styles.

OK, oh well I'll just have to put that out, somehow. Oh, when he ah came to Fernandina, then somehow did he get linked up with the Standard Hardware Store.

Well, he got linked up with the Standard Hardware Store back in the early 1900's. Oh when ah when Standard Hardware was looking for someone to make their nets for them.

There were two net makers in town. There was Red Freidman, what he called, o well anyway Red Freidman is what they called him and my grandpa...

So they were looking for somebody to manufacture their nets for them. In other words to sort of subcontract. They tried doing it with both of them but my grandpa was a little bit strong headed and he said no you either do it with me

or just forget it. Him being a bigger producer could make them a little faster you know. The business started out underneath this house on the beach,South (Landrick), Fernandina Beach and from there we moved up to here where we are now in 1957.

Where my my grandfather and father were more or less in it together and since then he has passed away and its all my father's and me. Out here with my father now and as you see we have grown a little larger now.

Very much larger, well then when he started he only made the flat net and that was basically.

Right, that is all he did at the very start but when he started making other people's nets that is when the variations come in cause everyone wanted something different.

So from that period on you know, we're into I don't know how many patterns now, you just couldn't name them all, but you know I make a total of 120 something different patterns or styles.

Wow, I didn't realize there where so many of them, Um how did your father learn? How young was he when he started?

He started I guess you could say when he was a boy. But he was more into the fish market before he got into the net business, in other words ah, the net business back

in his time wasn't as booming like it is now. You just had a handful of shrimpers here. It was hardly any export business at all. Just mostly home-town boys.

And my father he stayed busy peddling fish and shrimp on his bicycle from one place to another. Delivering for them and his brother did the same thing, Frank Burbank, who is also in the net business in Freeport, Texas.

Oh, so anyway that's basically you know what it has been like.

Right, I'm the oldest, then comes Tommy, then David, then Johnny, Ranging from 28--22.

Well, lets see I started myself actually working when I was 11 years old. Ah, that's my mother. I seen my mother doing it and I said well heck if she can I can do it.

So I jumped in there and started learning from then on. During football, baseball, and everything else I you know worked after school a little bit during the summers. Then about 1970-71, I started full-time, after one year of col-

Yeah, she did when she was alive, she passed away about three years ago and oh, she helped us out too. We'd have the whole family down here at one time.

So, really net making can be done by men or women it doesn't matter.

Well, that's just the old time shrimpers. That's the way they feel. But oh, there are some women who can produce some shrimp.

There are some women who are fairly good at net making, but the biggest thing I can see about the net making is that the woman has the tendency not to be able to stand up as long as a little bit more rest for the back and legs and this is really the only draw back,

So the net business, right now I take it is really... It seems like it's really good.

You have how many net makers?

Well, with the new building we have now we are keeping up, which is good. It gives us a little more time off.

Before we were having to work 6-7 days a week trying to keep up and we stayed, usually 2-3 weeks behind which in the shrimp business you have to be able to produce when the shrimp are here.

In other words they can't wait 'till next week to get the net. They need it now 'cause the shrimp are here now. And if they disappear, then they'll say, well, I don't need the net. So for our benefit we need to get the work out as soon as possible.

We do more new nets than repairs but it's probably going to be on the upswing, as far as repairs concerned this year.

Oh, it's so many boats out and money is a

No, no we are widely exporting to South America, Africa, Panama Canal, oh Lo Pas, Mexico and this are so you know, it's not strictly the United States.

So you can say we range from North Carolina all the way down to Florida. Up the Gulf Coast through the Texas Panhandle area.

I say we are probably the largest producer, now I don't know if we are the largest building now, which I could pretty much say we (telephone ringing) are the largest building as far as concerning in the United States right now.

But I still say we are probably the largest producer as far as the number of nets. 'Cause I don't think anyone is producing the amount that we produce.

No, there you know are several, several, several net makers, around you know. If you are in business for yourself you have to have a great deal of capital to do the business that we are doing.

In other words if we weren't with the Standard Hardware who which you know is a big company,

which who can carry the load you know the money on the books and you know shrimpers can't pay all the time.

And the amount of (webbing) supplies that we have to order turn into a great number of dollars and smaller people just can't seem to carry that much in overhead and stuff you see.

That's probably one reason they don't do quite as much. Plus I don't think there is no other net making family that has as many of its own relatives in the business as we do and we are really gung-ho at it you know.

I guess you could say that our family is some of the faster sewers there is you know. We haven't met anyone that could out sew us yet, so...

I could imagine, let me see, so you don't have any sisters in the business, but all your brothers are in the business.

What do you call your business? What is your official name?

Well, like I said it's opened 7 days a week here in the past, but now we are trying to keep it down to a 5 day week.

And it is open from about 4:00 am in the morning and 6:30-7:00 at night. That's usually when I'm here and when I leave.

When ...4 in the morning, gosh it just dawned on me what you said. Oh, my God it makes me tired just thinking about it.

Do you ever have any emergencies come in--like a shrimper really needs his net repaired?

We have some like say on occasions that will have a routine set up for the day and we try not to break that routine.

Try to take care of everybody as they come and you'll have a shrimper who has no spare net or something and gets our and tears up shrimp are really producing and he can't afford no waste in time so he comes in and begs, pleads with us, please, please, fix my net.

So we'll maybe step in and

Yeah, most of your old time shrimpers knew some amount of sewing and patching what have you. Some of the minor stuff can be done on the boats themselves but there is a lot of stuff it just like...

Oh, you know you're working on your car. You know you can check the water in the battery, radiator or a little grease job, maybe minor. But when something is really wrong with something, it's not worth your time, you know, and money to experiment trying to do this to this. When you can get someone who knows what they are doing, you know, and charge them fair labor to get it back right, you see.

But, most of your old timers know how to sew and still know how. But most of your young boys rely more on us instead of learning how to sew. But they all need to know how to patch their own nets on the boat 'cause they get out there with small holes that they need to take care of right then instead of just letting them go.

No, I... when I was coming up I was more sports minded. In other words I had several scholarships offers in football, baseball and that's where I was leaning towards, you know, at first.

Then I decided against football because I felt like if I got into the football game I wouldn't be back here to help my father, you know what I mean. So I went over to Gulf Coast, Panama City to take up a little Marine Biology and stuff, just to learn different types of things about marine life itself and played two years of baseball.

Business started picking up a little bit and my father needed the help so I decided I better come back, and try to learn something and here I am.

That's true and yet too it would have been an dying art. That's the trouble with all their other net makers. They have no one to teach it took and they are steadily dying out a lot of their older people.

It's just in one case up

up here in North Georgia, 100 miles.

I guess you could say one of my competitors, of course, he was kind of a counter part with Standard Hardware too, which handles a little bit a network for us up that line, passed away and since his passing away we've gotten a lot of business back from that area that we really used to get.

So you can see it's gong to be benefiting us more and more as these people die off, but it is a shame you know. They don't have anyone to teach the art to because it is a dying trade really.

No, no there is no way a machine can manipulate the stitches the way, you know, the way our hand sewers can. Because there are so many little things. For example flaws in the webbing, for example that have to be stopped to be patched or repaired as you're making a net.

A machine would just go right on through. Another thing, it takes a machines 8 hours to make one bale of webbing that use and I could cut up probably 3-4 bales in one day. So that goes to show you how slow a machine is compared to one person.

want to learn it for some reason. I don't know if, whether they think it's not profitable or they think it's too hard. I don't know what it is, or maybe they don't have a good relationship with their parents where it seems like you had a real good relationship in your family which made (you) want to help your father.

And it's great, net making, I've never seen really a family of net makers like yours. I've seen just the old timers. That's...

the old timers, hand-knit, cast nets, what have you, and that sort of thing, right. But, I tell you, it has a lot to do with just like someone who wants to be a farmer. He has to understand the dollar value of what he is going to get out of this as compared to him going to college trying to learn a some job, that everybody can get, you know.

You have 10,000 accountants, you know so many of this, you have this, you have that. But you don't have very many real true farmers, or net makers, or shrimpers. This (is) a wild open field, you know. There's not only shrimp, fish, crabs. Everything is this field that is really self taught. I mean the basics are there. All you have to do is do it. If the person is really strong minded about wanting to make a dollar there, there is no limit to what he can do you know.

Right, well the first thing I would do if I was starting with a new fresh bale of webbing unopened is I would cut the side seam of this burlap that surrounds the bale.

I would cut this open so I could get to the webbing. Then I, ah, depending on what type of net it was, I would start cutting several pieces off of this bale. Just as if a seamstress was going to make a shirt, she has to have a bolt of cloth. The would cut one certain size of piece. First, where say the body part of the shirt. Then another side for the sleeves to be sewed in. Well, that, basically (is) the same thing I would do. I would start cutting off certain size pieces so many meshes long. There a bale consists of 3,000 meshes which is each little square, that's a mesh, by so many deep. So I cut off like you say several pieces to start putting the net together.

All right, after I get it cut up, I put the pieces in the proper places to start the net. In other words, I set up what we call wings, which would be like sleeves on a shirt. All right, in between that I would lay the body which we start it, certain points start sewing those to the wing. We sew the top first to the wing. Then the wings flip up kinda like sides and we sew the bottom on which we are building the net upside down to start with 'cause it is a little easier to do that way.

And after we get the top, bottom and the wings sewed together

It goes from one end to the other on the top and the bottom. In other words, you hand it. You hang one stretch all the way across the top and one stretch all the way across the bottom. And in each end of this you have 4 leg lines. You have 2 on this end and 2 on the other end.

You have a tip and bottom and a top and a bottom and each end you put a galvanized thimble which is an eye shaped thing. In other words, this is where the net is shackled to the doors. You run a shackle through this eye and shackled it to the doors. So they can unshackle the net if they have to bring it in for repairs or shackle it up when they get ready to drag.

Uh, huh, there's a lot to it.

Right, right you seen it right outside there. It is dipped in a polyvinyl paint. You have 2 different colors, a blue and a green. Also, we have the old style tar. Just regular old hot tar that penetrates the nylon better than the paint would, but it is a lot messier on the boat and you also get burnt up from the fumes in the sun.

Now, some of the old time shrimpers swear by it, but all the newtime people say forget it. They want the paint. It's a lot cleaner, it doesn't get on your boat, and it don't get on your hands.

Well, ah several years ago we came into a era where we weren't just pulling 1 net on each side, 2 nets per boat.

We started pulling 4 nets, 2 small nets on each side which seemed to produce better than just 1 single net on each side of the boat so this took more gear, more power and more fuel to pull these 4 little nets which caused a lot of shrimpers trouble since it was more trouble to get 4 nets on the boat than 2.

Well, I decided to come up with something that would revert back to one net but that was doing the job of the 2 nets. In other words, the Mongoose is

actually 2 nets in one. You don't have to pull what they call the dummy sled or the bullet with this net. But you still get the same amount of spread or mouth opening that you would be getting with the smaller nets or actually more because you don't have a breaking point in the middle between the 2 nets. This is all one net, 1 solid mouth, and also I can get a lot more height out of this net which is detrimental to the white shrimp.

In other words you have to have this height to catch the white shrimp. There is really no other net right now that will out produce this net.

Yeah, right, right that, that will probably be the white shrimp net from now on unless we can come up with something even better than that. But we can add to this if we have to as far as more height but you don't want to over do anything.

The other net that I have out is the Condor which is kinda slow taking on because we are still modifying in so many ways. Trying to, what we are trying to get is a net that is more streamlined than the Mongoose but actually fishes like the Mongoose.

In other words we want something