(Remembering the Guild of Knot Tyers who could staff a show'n'tell booth
at a big West Coast maritime festival but apparently couldn't make it out of
that closed world to check on the actual com.fishs.users who were also at
the fair. That is a sad commentary on Guild interests!)
and just who do you have in mind when you say this?
Well, "where the shoe fits ...". My open urging for the PAB folks to make contact
and begin an exchange of information with the fishermen involved in this big
annual event is here --
igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=905.0 --,
and I'd hoped to hear reports back about the various fishing activities
and associated cordage & knotting (which can be divided between knotting
done seldom/once, in advance, and that done on a recurring, per-use basis).
--such as I've been able to infrequently pursue on trips to the Right Coast.
Next chance seems to be approaching for this annual September event.
Hey, "Deadliest Catch" has garnered enough general-viewer interest to
keep it running now for what, four years? --and to spawn off some like
show on the NE lobstering industry (which, alas, I missed). (not w/t.v.
much; did get to see DC recently on an unfortunate stay in the hospital;
and in one show a crab-pot bridle broke at the rail--seemed it was at
the Clove H. on one side, which suggests chafe as the cause!?)
For which I confess a big (repeated, even) "touche'" on making something
shareable (articles) of my findings. (And which I'm now realizing there is yet
a question in one case as to behavior: what happens when a lobster pot is
hauled on board? --the pot hauler on the one lobstering boat working out
of Cape May sits above a deep narrow opening in the deck which implies
that the longline is deposited below deck, but I don't think that the pots go
there--and that implies the snood's becket hitch & tucked end being undone
per use (and re-tied with longline brought up and set out and ... later)!
Who are your "real" rope users? 
NOT the every-so-often person enquiring about this or that possible knot,
but regular users of cordage. In volume of some measure (I forget it it was
linear feet or by weight), I recall some source claiming that "construction"
was the biggest cordage consumer. Certainly, Com.Fish.Knotting stands
as a big "real" (tm) (!) rope use--much cordage, and in some cases as noted
above, regular hands-on involvement with it (as contrast with, say, just
bringing up netting, or adjusting sails).
But there are all sorts activities with some soft of cordage "components"
to explore. Climbing, caving, canyoneering, and SAR for these activities
share some aspects of cordage (kernmantle); SAR more on the fire dept.
side of things seems to stand a bit further apart (and might have laid rope).
Arborists depend upon rope to ascend and tend to trees, and have need
for rope-climbing knotting as well as for heavier use in bringing chunks
of trees to ground or pulling a tree over (where there can be a danger of
a seriously loaded rope snapping!). This is a rich activity to explore.
Utility work & underground cable setting has brought in half-inch lub'd PES
solid tape, which I see employed by various such workers as general tie-downs.
And the IGKT has at least one fellow (Mike Storch) who has a history (and
contemporary presence) with what we might think of as "cowboy"/ranch
cordage use (hard-laid lassos, leather working).
Of course there are the oodles of "sailors" whose sometimes comical masses
of cordage around dock cleats can be amusing to see, and to wonder about.
Many of these folks while clearly needing some involvement w/cordage display
little of what we'd think of as
skill with it.
And ignoring the question of "rope" vs "string", anglers are chock full of knots
(in dang tiny fiddly springing stuff at times).
Maybe regarded as slightly related, at least w/cordage size, medical uses of
cordage is another application area to chart. (I had some brief enagement
w/a doctor seeking knotting ideas--in suture, and in a thin cotton tape.)
--dl*
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