Pun intended. I am KNOT dyslexic.
Which means, although I can tie my shoes and do a decent square knot (learned it in Girl Scouts) and even a couple half hitches (most of the time), I just cannot learn knots from diagrams in books, or if I do, I have a very short memory for them. Really. Even if I do a knot successfully five times in a row, I can walk away from work for fifteen minutes, and the next time I try to do the same knot it's a disaster.
Lately part of my job involves mending fish trap nets. I have been working on faith that, when one of my coworkers lifts that very net this fall, they won't exclaim "Deb must have done this one! Look at those stupid overdone knots!" And "why was this not patched instead of just stitched together haphazardly!"
I know none of my coworkers would say this. And the muskrats will continue to chew holes in the nets no matter how elaborately they are patched. But I just wish I could learn how to do more than a figure eight and a square knot. And remember how to do them, for more than a few minutes.
I am choosing to do the smaller mesh nets, which we use for walleye fingerling harvest, because instead of tying an elaborate web of knots in those, we simply stitch in a patch of mesh. That I can do. Don't ask me to weave a net.
5 comments:
hey stranger! You could defintely win a knot contest- most of the ones I know involve fishing line.. or shoelaces, and I don't do those too well :)
enjoed your recent photos too, hope all is well up yonder.. think spring! :)
Uni knots and double-uni's are super easy to learn, easy to remember, and I have repaired my cast nets using them many times.
Good luck!
Well, this looks like a reunion of bloggers who haven't commented here in a while! Welcome back!
Cindy- Good to hear from you, friend. Sorry to hear your health is not improving, like I keep hoping will happen. Spring is definitely here now, I heard my first sandhill cranes this morning! Take care. Thinking of you often. :)
Thingfish23- Thanks for the tip. I actually looked at the diagrams in my old "Fisheries Techniques" book, and I practiced one knot a few times, and I did get better at it...if I can remember it tomorrow.
And, thanks for the post about inadvertently omitting me from your sidebar! I had noticed I wasn't there, but I thought it's your sidebar, whatever. It's nice to hear I was missed! This blogging community thing is great.
Ah, yes, knots... I taught myself to tie my own shoes when young, and apparently i figured out my own system that doesn't actually work as well, but it's gotten me by for 35 years. But I'm still embarrased for people to watch me tie shoes!
I also used to work at a site with some historic commercial fishing items, and I could never picture how the old Norwegian men used to weave/patch the nets with those big needle things. A myster...
I was never good at tying knots.-I believe that I'm computer dyslexic-always flipping letters around backwards.
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