Lost nets and gear keep fishing for years and snag on wrecks, reefs and structures. Removing them is an underwater job with growing demand, funded by environmental programmes, ports and public bodies. It is technically demanding: entanglement risk is the biggest hazard of the operation and it shapes the whole method.
A piece of fishing gear that gets lost does not disappear. It stays where it fell, snagged on a wreck, a rocky reef, a port structure or simply the seabed, and keeps doing what it was designed to do for years. This is called ghost fishing, and it is one of the marine environmental problems with the widest consensus behind it.
For professional diving, this has been building into a modest but real niche of work, with one particularity: technically it is one of the underwater jobs that deserves the most respect, because it concentrates the risk into a hazard that does not forgive mistakes in method.
Why it is a different kind of job
Most underwater jobs have a stable object: a pile, a pipeline, a hull. Here the object is a flexible, three-dimensional material that moves with the current, that often cannot be seen in full from any single point, and that is designed precisely to catch things.
The dominant hazard is enredo. It is not theoretical: a loose panel of netting moving can wrap around the helmet, the umbilical or the harness in seconds, and in turbid water the diver may not notice until they try to pull back. The whole design of the operation — from the number of people involved to the order the cuts are made in — starts from treating that risk as the main one.
Locating it first
Before putting anyone in the water, it pays to know what is down there. Locating the gear combines several sources: information from whoever reported the loss, charts and bathymetry of the area, a survey using sonar and, when depth or extent justify it, a prior inspection with a remotely operated vehicle.
That preliminary survey delivers three things that change the job: the actual extent of the gear, which is almost always bigger than assumed; the type of material — a panel of light netting is not the same thing as a longline with hooks or gear with large-diameter rope —; and the snag points, meaning where it is caught and what will happen once it is freed.
That last point is the one most often underestimated. Snagged gear can be holding tension, and cutting in the wrong place can release stored energy all at once.
Method of work
The principle that everything else is built around is simple: the diver always works from the outside of the gear inward, never underneath or through the inside of a net structure. No shortcuts through the inside of a mesh to get to the other side faster.
The job is broken into sections. A manageable stretch is chosen, freed from its snag points, cut, and prepared for lifting. Then the next one is tackled. Trying to bring up a whole piece of gear in one go is the fast route to a problem: the weight is unpredictable, the mass can shift over the diver, and pulling from the surface on something still snagged can tear away part of the structure it is caught on.
Cutting tools
Manual tools, with redundancy. Knives, shears and cutters made specifically for rope and mesh, mounted so they are reachable with either hand without letting go of whatever is being held. The unwritten rule is that a diver working among nets always carries more than one means of cutting, because the moment the second one is needed is exactly the moment you cannot go and fetch it.
Mechanical and hydraulic tools have their place on very heavy material, but they bring extra hoses with them, which are themselves one more thing that can get tangled. Every item that goes into the water has to earn its place.
Lifting
The cut section is brought up in a controlled way, using lifting bags or surface-based means depending on the weight and the site. The typical risk here is underestimation: a net loaded with biomass, sand and sediment weighs far more than it looks like it should, and a bag's buoyancy increases as it rises. The rules for handling loads are covered in the article on lifting bags, and they apply here without exception.
One detail specific to this job: the diver never rides up with the load or positions themselves directly underneath it. With an object that can come loose or unfurl on the way up, that discipline is non-negotiable.
Safety: the escape plan
On a net-removal job, the risk assessment has a section that does not appear in quite the same way in other jobs: what to do if the diver gets entangled.
The usual elements are having a standby diver immediately available and ready to intervene, redundant cutting tools, strict management of the umbilical from the surface — just enough slack, with no loose bight floating near the gear — and clear, continuous communication. An umbilical with excess slack is the first candidate to snag as soon as there is current.
Reduced visibility makes all of this worse. When the water is not cooperating, the work becomes tactile and the pace slows. Accepting that pace is part of the method, not a compromise.
The environmental side
There is one aspect this job shares with underwater archaeology: the goal is not just to remove, it is to remove without causing more damage than there already is. A net heavily embedded in a rocky seabed or a reef can have been part of it for years, and ripping it out carelessly destroys the very thing the job was meant to protect.
The decision to remove or leave part of the material can rest with the body commissioning the work, not with whoever carries it out. On jobs with environmental involvement it is normal to have specialist oversight and criteria set in advance on what gets taken out and what gets cut and left in place.
In the same way, associated wildlife calls for judgement: there can be living organisms on the material and, in some environments, protected species. That point is settled beforehand with whoever commissioned the job, not improvised on the seabed.
What happens to the material ashore
The job does not end when the last section reaches the deck. The recovered material is waste: it comes up wet, heavy, with sand, biomass and sometimes animal remains, and it has to be handled in line with the regulations of the country where it is landed.
Recycling routes exist for certain net plastics, but their availability depends on volume, the material's condition and the country. This is something to settle at the tender stage, not once the campaign is over, because the handling cost can be significant. The general logic is covered in the article on underwater work waste management.
Documenting what was removed
There is almost always a need to record what came out, and not for bureaucracy's sake: whoever is funding the campaign needs to justify the result, and whoever carried it out needs to demonstrate the scope was met.
The usual record includes the position of each find, the type of gear, an estimate of its extent, the weight recovered, the condition of the material and any incidents encountered. Underwater photography and video help, but their value is limited in turbid water, and the diver's sketch with measurements taken is often the most useful document.
There is an extra reason to document well: removal data feeds the environmental programmes that fund these campaigns and helps decide where to act next. A report with precise positions and identified gear types is worth far more than a tonnage count, and it is what marks out a contractor who gets asked back for next year's programme.
When material turns up that is not fishing gear — wreckage, munitions or any suspicious object — the rule is not to touch it, mark the position and report it. That point has to be set out in the procedure before the job starts, with the point of contact already identified, because this is exactly the kind of situation where improvising gets expensive.
Who commissions this work
The market is fragmented. There are public and environmental-organisation programmes that fund removal campaigns in specific areas; there are port authorities that include seabed clean-up in their maintenance contracts; and there are one-off jobs from shipowners or facility owners when lost gear is interfering with their activity.
That dependence on available funding makes the niche patchy. It rarely supports a company on its own, but it fits well as a sideline for marine works contractors or salvamentocontractors, who already have the means and the load-handling experience.
A job with room to grow
Attention to marine litter has grown, and with it the willingness to fund action on it. For a commercial diver, this is not a career change: it is one more speciality within the trade, built on skills already in hand — searching, cutting, load handling, working in reduced visibility — learned during basic training.
What it does bring is a dimension many divers value: underwater work whose result can be seen, measured, and that leaves the site better than it found it. In a trade that usually operates in the shadow of industrial projects, that carries its own weight.
Frequently asked questions
Why is removing a lost net dangerous?
Because the main hazard is not depth or current, it is entanglement. A lost net is a three-dimensional structure, often invisible in turbid water, with loose panels that move and catch the helmet, umbilical, harness and tools. The whole working method is designed around avoiding that entanglement and being able to get free if it happens.
What equipment is used for cutting?
Manual cutting tools — knives, shears and cutters made specifically for rope and mesh — with redundancy: always more than one means of cutting, reachable with either hand. On very heavy material mechanical tools can be used, but they bring their own entanglement risk and are not always worth it.
Is the net removed whole or in pieces?
Almost always in pieces. Bringing up a whole piece of gear in one go is usually neither workable nor safe, because the weight is unpredictable and because pulling on an entangled mass can shift it over the diver or damage the structure it is caught on. It is cut into manageable sections and each one is lifted in a controlled way.
Who pays for this kind of work?
It depends on the context. There are public and environmental-organisation programmes that fund removal campaigns, port authorities that contract out the clean-up of their waters, and also one-off jobs paid for by shipowners or facility owners when lost gear is affecting their activity. It is a fragmented market, heavily dependent on whatever funding is available at any given time.
What happens to the recovered material?
It is handled ashore as waste, and that has to be planned for from the tender stage. The material comes up with biomass stuck to it, sand and sometimes animal remains, which complicates handling. Recycling routes exist for certain net plastics, but their availability depends on the country and the volume recovered.
Published 8 September 2026 · By Arthur More, professional saturation diver
Photo: Sam Beebe · CC BY via Openverse
This article is part of our in-depth guide to underwater welding: the pay, the training and the myth — the complete picture, with sources.
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