Seafood Week - and today it is 'hail the hake' day!

At 6am it's a dark enough start to the mornings in October but that doesn't stop the business of fishing which goes on 24/7 in a port like Newlyn...

Of course hake isn't the only fish...

 the netter Britannia V landed on the market this morning... 

amongst the rest of the fish landed were a dozen or so monk cheeks...

and a pair of decent sized cod.

At the start of every hake trip each of the Newlyn hake netters has to take on board four or five tons of flake ice...

it's the same ice is used to ice the harbour boxes when the fish is presented for auction...

in order to meet the standards required by the MSC to maintain the quality of Cornish Certified hake...

so that the fleet of 15 certified boats, of which the Britannia V is one, can begin the chain of custody that is required in order to let buyers know that the hake caught meets the stringent requirements necessary, from the kind and size of nets employed, the pingers set with the nest to ensure that by-catches of dolphins and porpoises are a thing of the past to how the fish are gutted, iced and boxed at sea... 

once the fish have been sold they are stacked...

and whisked away to the processors for packing in super-insulated polystyrene boxes for distribution to fish merchants and fishmongers the length and breadth of the UK...

like this 6 kilo plus beauty safe in the hands of the Chelsea Fishmonger, young Rex Goldmsith!

Steaming for home when the weather is not so good.

At this time of year when the weather has that wintry feel, boats like the Ajax often steam for 12 hours or more in weather like this to bring the catch home to market.  Hake from the Ajax will be ready for auction on Friday morning's market in Newlyn.

Rare fish on Newlyn's busy fish market this morning.

With the clocks having sprung forwards last weekend and a big Spring tide...

morning market visits are just as dark as they were a month or so ago...

not that the buyers would notice on a busy auction floor...

especially when there has been no fish up for sale since last Thursday....

so the two net boats, Amanda of Ladram....

and Govenek of Ladram...

along with the Scottish prawn trawler Revival should enjoy high prices for their big white fish landings...

nice box of undulate ray...

the only beam trawler to land, the Trevessa IV had a good selection of flats like these brill and turbot...

while the prawn trawler, Asteria bagged a few good lifts of decent green (cod) in her trip...

mixing up the colourful fish, the netter Amanda of Ladram landed a rare silver hake Merluccius albidus...

 sometimes known as the offshore hake, offshore silver hake, or offshore whiting...

not to be confused with the much more common European Hake and staple diet of the Cornish hake netting fleet, Merluccius merluccius...

or the unavoidable haddock favoured by just about any boat that dips a net in the water in the Western Approaches...

young Roger Nowell's eyes would be popping of he saw the ttwenty boxes of good John Dory that the Revival put ashore from his trip way west of the Scillys - a sign of things to come for the Imogen III he would hope...

favourite for the beam trawlers before swinging quota cuts made them not so targettable, Dover sole...

nice run of red mullet for the big beamer, Trevessa IV... 

it seems that JDs are all over the prawn grounds...

not so thick on the ground are mackerel though many of the boats would have stayed in harbour over the break...

a busy start to the week...

the pythonesque look of the ling...

inshore gurnards tend to be red...

while the offshore boats pick up the less colourful grey variety...

Brackan on the Spirited Lady managed a good shot of megrims which have been making excellent money while the beam trawl fleet have targeted cuttlefish over the last six months...

still not the warmest of mornings...

though that doesn't seem to have done anything to deter a fresh growth of lawn on the as yet, to be replaced, market roof...

first light...

 at high water...

finds the Amanda with a fresh supply of boxes ready to go aboard...

the Revival showing her allegiance to Crown & Country...

the deck and rails of the mini-beamer were modified to allow for the extra width of her beam trawls on such a confined deck area...

the Mair at rest...

evidence of a day spent mending on the quay alongside the big Scottish prawn boats...

despite the weather and big tides which make inshore trawling very dangerous should the boat come 'tight' on the bottom, New Venture managed a short trip to land this morning...

half the fleet are in port and waiting to sail today...

while the Asteria should be away tomorrow having steamed for nine hours with a gale-force wind beam on to make it back to Newlyn from the prawn grounds west of the Scillys...

more work for the harbour boys...

a watery sun greets the day...

Sid's Karen of Ladram is all set for the next tide...

she's just been fired up on a chilly morn...

the raven flies...

choppy waters las the Jubilee Pool a mile across the bay.