Mackerel has played a huge part in the modern history of Newlyn as a fishing port...
throughout the autumn and winter months from the 1970s into the 80s, every boat in the Newlyn fleet under 60ft, plus dozens more from as far afield as Weymouth to the east and Milford Haven to the north rigged themselves with hand-lines and gurdies - a mechanical winding machine with a 7lb lead weight and 24 'feathered' hooks - and fished for mackerel - mackerel shoals were so big they were measured in tens of fathoms deep and five miles or more across by the paper echo sounders of the day - so dense was one shoal that a large merchant ship limped into Falmouth Bay with her seawater-cooling inlet systems choked with mackerel...
eventually, even Newlyn's biggest boats couldn't ignore the fishery any longer and turned to mid-water trawling - seen here is the ports biggest ship at the time, the Silver Harvester and her pair partner Dew-Genen-Ny...
even a few of the port's trawlers like Bobby Laity's, Marina tried their hand with pelagic gear...
as word of the huge shoals spread, ever larger boats came from far and wide, like the Lowestoft fleet and boats like the Boston Sea Harrier skippered by the legendary Alec Lincoln...
or the huge factory trawlers from Grimsby and Hull, though not everything went quite so well for them as the Conquest found out when she ran ashore near Mousehole on Boxing Day 1977...
or the Bounteous in 1980, where three lives were lost while she was hauling her net, she was one half of two pair trawling teams that came down from Buckie, Heather Sprig, Loranthus and Wave Crest...
at that time, the catches were huge and landings reached hundreds of thousands of tons, however it was not to last, over time, changes in the climate saw the fish head to the west of Ireland - in this 1981 photo, the entire Scottish pelagic fleet anchored in Mounts Bay having searched in line abreast from Plymouth over the previous 12 hours looking for mackerel marks to shoot on...
today most mackerel landed in Newlyn is caught by fishermen using handlines...
and landed, in ice, hours after it is caught. Mackerel is up there with the healthiest and tastiest of fish and can be eaten raw sashimi style, grilled, griddled, baked, soused whole or filleted - one of the best eating fish in the sea according to Michelin starred chef Richard Corrigan who has a mackerel signature dish. Nothing more than a squeeze of lemon on a freshly cooked fish will guarantee the chef gets the nod from all those stood around the barbecue! When Bruce has it on the menu at The Shore in Penzance, you can't go wrong dining at the shore to taste what can be done with this fish that some, surprisingly, won't eat because of its reputation as a 'scavenger'!
