About: I'm the kind of person who's mind doesn't stop. Literally, I take medication to fix that just so I can sleep at night. I have an unhealthy obsession with making things and believe, firmly, in sharing what I le…

In this instructable I want to go through the process of net making from beginning to end, starting with carving the net needle to weaving the net itself. I also plan in incorporating a string making tutorial for those who want to duplicate this project from absolute beginning to end. For the sake of simplicity, and to prevent the instructable from ending up with 20+ steps, the string making and the weaving tutorials will be limited to one step each, in the form of short videos and are completely optional to the rest of the instructable.

A Bit Of Background;

As a child I was fortunate enough to have a parent that worked for Museums of Canada. This often meant that school holidays were spent exploring the museum displays. As a teenager, I was expected to volunteer during summer vacations. On the plus side, it meant that I was able to view artifacts up close, and even handle some that were closed away from the public. Fed by my need to create, this inevitably led to a lifelong obsession with recreating many of the artifacts I saw there, which is where many of my instructables come from.

Now like many, I was fascinated with archaic weapons such as the atlatl and the bow, and I have spent many hours replicating those items, but nothing fascinated me more than the day to day items that lithic cultures used. The one item that fascinated me most was net making.

Paleo Uses For The Net;

I came to realize that, of all the tools available to prehistoric man, nothing was more versatile than the simple net. As a fishing tool, it allowed it's user to catch food in bulk and was unsurpassed. It dawned on me that modern day hook and line setups were less about a guaranteed meal, and more about equalizing the odds for the fish in the name of ecology, which is essentially why many countries have outlawed the use of nets to all but indigenous cultures.

A net was equally as useful on land. Splayed over a rabbit hole, predatory animals, such as the ferret or snake were inserted into a second hole, or a fire was built just outside the den, and as the rabbit attempted to make its escape, it found itself tangled in the net. In modern terms, it is a very humane way to catch an animal and provides the most calories for the least amount of work.

The net was equally useful for birds. Strung out over a V shaped stick, it allowed the hunter the reach to catch birds mid flight, and again was very humane and calorically beneficial.

Most of all, it provided a convenient way of transporting large amounts of gathered material. It was a backpack, a hand bag, a shopping bag etc, all rolled into one.