tellux in 1781 remained in common practice into the
20th Century, when the big ones became much scarcer:

As I was walking by the river side [James near Westover], I saw two
negroes carrying an immense sturgeon, and on asking them how they
had taken it, they told me that at this season they were so common
as to be taken easily in a seine and that fifteen or twenty were
found sometimes in the net; but that there was a much more simple
method of taking them, which they had just been using. This species
of monster, which are so active in the evening as to be perpetually
leaping to a great height above the surface of the water, usually
sleep profoundly at mid-day. Two or three negroes then proceed in a
little boat, furnished with a long cord at the end of which is a
sharp iron crook, which they hold suspended like a log line. As
soon as they find this line stopped by some obstacle, they draw it
forcibly towards them so as to strike the hook into the sturgeon,
which they either drag out of the water, or which, after some
struggling and losing all his blood, floats at length upon the
surface and is easily taken.

The frequently met-with term, "fishery," in Colonial writings took on a
special meaning as the industry developed. It was used in the sense of
what the present Virginia lawbook calls a "regularly hauled fishing
landing."

This is usually a shore privately owned where the fronting waters have
been cleared of obstructions. The owner, or some one permitted by him,
operates a long seine at that place by carrying it offshore in boats
and hauling it to land. So long as he thus uses the spot "regularly"
the law protects him, now as in the past, by making it illegal for any
other person to fish with nets within a quarter-mile of "any part of
the shore of the owner of any such fishery."

The rights to such a property were, and are, in many cases extremely
profitable. George Washington was among the Virginia planters zealously
caring for their "fisheries."

Often the privilege of using these was advertised in the newspapers or
otherwise for rent for a long or short term. Some owners who did not
themselves wish to fish counted on their shores to yield rental. One of
these, George William Fairfax, must have expressed himself to
Washington on the subject, for the latter wrote him in June, 1774:

... As to your fishery at the Raccoon Branch, I think you will