Standard (EADGBE)
With our nets and gear we're faring
On the wild and wasteful ocean.
Its out there on the deep we harvest and reap our bread
As we hunt the bonny shoals of herring
O it was a fine and a pleasant day
Out of Yarmouth harbour I was faring
As a cabinboy on a sailing lugger
We were following the shoals of herring
Now you're up on deck, you're a fisherman
You can swear and show a manly bearing
Take your turn on watch with the other fellows
As your hunting for the shoals of herring
Now we fished the Swarth and the Broken Bank
I was cook and I'd a quarter sharing
And I used to sleep standing on my feet
As we hunted for the shoals of herring
We left the homegrounds in the month of June
And for Canny Shiels we soon were bearing
With a hundred cran of the silver darlings
That we'd taken from the shoals of herring
In the stormy seas and the living gales
Just to earn your daily bread you're faring
From the Dover Straits to the Faroe Islands
As you're hunting for the shoals of herring
Well I earned my keep and I paid my way
And I earned the gear that I was wearing
Sailed a million miles, caught ten million fishes
We were hunting after shoals of herring
You're net rope man now, or you're on the move
And your learing all about sea faring
That's your education scraps of navigation
As you hunt the bonnie shoals of herring
Night and day the sea's we are daring
Come wind or calm or winter gales
Sweating our cold growing up growing old or dying
as you hunt the bonny schoal of herring