shoal 2 n OED ~ sb2 1 (1601-) for sense 1; 4 ~ net (Nfld: 1792).
1 A large number of fish (esp cod) or seals swimming in company while feeding or migrating; the migration of the fish or seals to inshore water; SCULL.
1620 WHITBOURNE 35 They may imploy themselves all the time that there is good to be done in fishing in that trade onely, and betweene the faile of the Shoales of fish, they may build houses and other necessarie things. [1766] 1971 BANKS 145 The Seals who Come in Shoals finding themselves Stopd by the tight net Crowd to it trying to find some way of getting on in the mean time the fishermen Draw tight the second net by which they are inclosd in a pound the Second Shoal of Seals are stopd by the second net & securd by the third & so they Proceed till they have filld all their nets or taken all the Seals that Come through that Passage which are Easily Drawn ashore from the Pounds by a little Seine made for the Purpose. 1792 CARTWRIGHT Gloss i, xiv A number of seals or fish being in company, are called a shoal. I presume the term arose, from the breaking of the water among them, appearing like the rippling of shoaly ground. 1792 ibid iii, [4] "Labrador: A Poetical Epistle": The Codfish now in shoals come on the coast, / (A Fish'ry this, our Nation's chiefest boast). 1842 BONNYCASTLE i, 267 A capelin school, schule, or shoal, is eagerly looked for as the real commencement of the cod fishery. 1863 HIND ii, 224 The fish which supply the Straits and the Labrador fisheries consist for the most part of two large shoals, one of which, entering the Gulf off Cape Ray in April or May, passes through the Straits down the Labrador shore.
2 A mass of floating ice.
1712 West-India Merchant 8 For lying furthest S as I hinted already, their Seas are clear of Ice at least six Weeks before ours, where the Shoals of Ice continue many times till the beginning of May. 1814 KOHLMEISTER & KMOCH 46 The ice being drawn towards them with great force, the largest shoals are carried under water, and thrown up again, broken into numerous fragments.
3 Comb shoal net: number of nets placed together to trap seals swimming near the shore; FRAME, STOPPER.
[1770] 1792 CARTWRIGHT i, 64 The people could not visit more than half their nets. The whole consist of twelve shoal nets, of forty fathoms by two; and three stoppers, of a hundred and thirty fathoms by six. [1774] ibid ii, 30 The sealers put out a shoal-net at the head of White-Bear Sound.
