Not all rubbish is rubbish it seems - or one man's stone trap is another's fence!

Well before the Fishing for Litter scheme, farmers have recycled flotsam and jetsam for years - this looks like a stone trap designed by Winston Phillips when he worked for Bridport and Gundry - chances are it was lost from the Ocean Harvester under the command of Mervyn Mountjoy back in the late 1980s.

At that time the trawler Keriolet also fished with a stone trap - on a trawling watch you would sense that you had picked up a stone or notice the boat slow down or be slow to 'come round' (turn) or you might spot the exhaust temperature had risen as the engine worked harder - they were designed to pick up bigger stones and hold them so that when the trawl was hauled the belly wasn't ripped out which was what would often happen - on trawlers like the Keriolet, mending a trawl with a missing belly section in the stern deck at sea could take many hours of solid work with two men cutting out and mending, one filling needles, making tea and rolling cigarettes while another would be on watch (but that was in the days when such a boat would be four handed) at night the boat would exhibit 'two reds' to show that she was not under command the bulk of the trawl would be still in the water and the boat would therefore be unable to comply with the Collision Regs as prescribed.