The kind of fishing the disciples did was really labor intensive. It wasn’t, ya know, letting down a fishing line, kicking back with a refreshing beverage, and alternating between chatting and napping. Scholars think that they probably used seine or trammel nets. So, for seines, they would row out some distance from the shore and arrange this really long net parallel to the shore – sort of like they were making a fence underwater. Then they would row their boats between the shore and the net and beat their oars against the water. The fish would get so scared that they would run right into the net. Sometimes these nets were a hundred yards long and they had to be hauled up, by hand, including the weight of whatever got caught in it, and the downward pull of the water from an unsteady boat. Setting the net, positioning the boats, pulling with all your might over and over and over again. And that night– it had been for nothing.
Sources:
–https://www.saxum.org/fishing-techniques-at-the-sea-of-galilee-in-the-times-of-jesus/
–https://library.biblicalarchaeology.org/article/cast-your-net-upon-the-waters-fish-and-fishermen-in-jesus-time/