I had an uncle in Louisiana (30+ years ago) that used to "fish" down there for garfish. He had a little area that they would congregate, kind of like a little small pond looking area off the main bayou, with a entrance about the width of his little aluminum boat. He would go in, and anchor in the middle, then retrieve lines he had set out from tree limbs above him, and attach nets to the lines from his boat. Then he would pull on the lines, and the nets would start going towards pulleys he had attached to the trees. When the nets were all out, he would pull another line and drop the whole contraption into the water - all around his boat - about 10 lines, with nets attached to each line. He would pull some other strings, which would "close up" the large net, and then pull yet another to lift the nets system out of the water. If you can picture this - his little aluminum boat is sitting in the middle of what resembles and upside down umbrella - with garfish flopping all over the place in the net. Then he would pick up his .22lr, and start picking them off. The dead ones would just roll down the net into the boat. Then he would open up everything, remove his nets, reset his lines in the trees - and drive out with a load of dead garfish. Less than an hours "fishing" time, and he had a boatload of fish.
It's absolutely the wildest thing I've ever seen done while "fishing". He didn't do it for sport - he did it for eating. He would boil the meat, remove it from all the tiny bones, and then make "garfish balls" out of the meat - cover them with breading, and deep fry them. Great eating - and I might add - the ONLY time I've ever eaten garfish was when he made it. Otherwise, I never touched the things.
All the best,
Glenn