Monty Halls Fisherman's Apprentice

If anyone watched Monty(WorldsMostPatronisingMan)Halls last night, a couple of comments, firstly, it is highly unlikely that tope would fetch £40.00 more like £4.00, secondly the main problems facing inshore fishermen are not discards and quotas(although yes they are an issue) it is weather and tides, thirdly, most fishermen do not have Japanese wives who happen to have contacts in London sushi restaurants who will take the more unpopular fish off their hands, finally (I could go on all day! !) fishermen do not go out fishing in the hope that the Govt will suddenly re open the fisheries, they are informed by post at the beginning of each month of the catch quotas, once it's gone it's gone. OK rant over (for now !) As I'm sure you can imagine this is watched with much gritting of teeth and use of language I won't post on here ! ! 

Herrings + Mackerel

Some boats concentrate on one particular species, Go For It has nets for various species, meaning that once the quota for the prime fish (cod) has been fished or tides are too high for deep sea fishing the nets can be changed and another species targeted, a couple of weeks ago Go For It switched to herrings & mackerel.  These are fished closer into to the bay as the photo above shows.

A bit fiddly getting them out of the nets !

but 8 boxes later it's worth it,

prime mackerel. (and the camera lens has now been cleaned)

Crabs & Lobsters

In addition to the nets we also have 120 pots the aim of which is for them to be filled with huge juicy crabs and lobsters.

The pots are baited with salted herrings and mackerel 'frames'  (the bits left over after the fillets have been taken off) this smells HORRENDOUS but the lobsters & crabs like it ! !

The baited pots are set down near rocky areas - ours are off St Michaels Mount - and left for a couple of days.  The above photo shows undersized brown crabs all of which went back into the sea, also going back are any berried lobsters - females carrying eggs -

Any crabs which look like they may be too small are measured, if they fit into the measure they are too small and go back, this one is only a centimetre to two too small but it goes back 

as does this lobster, it will be another 3 years before this one is big enough to grace the plate, when it will be about 8 years old

this one however is a keeper, they are measured from back of the eye to the ridge at the beginning of the tail.

once sorted the keepers are put in a box of seawater for the journey back to port, on arrival at the mooring they are transferred to a holding pot kept submerged until there is enough to take to W.Harvey the shellfish merchants, then there is a weeks wait until the exciting bit - getting the cheque ! !

conger eels also like the lobster bait and are sometimes an unpleasant surprise when the pots are lifted, as a friend of ours says "they are meaner than a two headed snake" however they can often make for a nice little extra on the market, if not they can always be chopped up and used as bait.

These pictures were of the last hauling of pots, hopefully today's will produce even more.  The nets are out tonight so hopefully there will be a birthday bonus of lots of soles tomorrow ! ! 

Apologies (again)

Apologies again for lack of bloggy business which is mainly down to lack of fishy business (we had a small dinghy called that).

Am composing the next bloggy which will deal with the complex issue of Catch Composition <yawn>