First #FishyFriday in May!

Big clue as to which fish market this is...

and here are the boats landing this morning...

megrims aplenty from both the beam trawlers and the visiting prawn boats who are landing their whitefish to the market...

with his first chance to fish away west of the Scillys, Roger on the Imogen III has made a solid landing of his favourite summertime fish, John Dory...

and a handful or cracking red mullet thrown in for good measure, just look at the quality of Roger's fish......

Scottish boats land their monk whole...

checking out the results of one handliner's early morning haul of mackerel...

the fish are flighty and elusive this week making them hard to catch...

Don picked away good box of tub gurnards for his week at sea...

the almost prehistoric tail of a ray...

plaice aplenty...

builders bags have become a gosdsend for small and larger boats working nets...

allowing punt men like Barry to get on with the job more quickly and efficiently...

new crab pots still go aboard three at a time on the Girl Pamela though...

the business end of the latest Scottish prawner to join the fleet...

taking shape...

the stern of the Galilee is looking neat...

while the William now sports her reconditioned derricks and mast...

prawners, Solstice...

Shekinah...

and Nereus..

joined by the Astoria and Bracoden...

which was prefviously the old Solstice - many steel boats have their original names made in steel letters and welded to the bow...

which means they have to becovered over rather than burnt off when re-named...

or just painted over like the Shekinah ex-Ben Arkle...

waiting for the tide to drop to ciontinue the antifouling work on the hull...

away to sea for the Prospector...

some classic artwork coming up for auction Lane's, though the boats look Breton rather than Cornish...

unlike the luggers in this piece.

Mud and the banks - where's there's muck there's brass!

Below is an extract from the Norie Bristol Channel Pilotage book published in 1839 - which of course does not mean the data contained therein will be anything like as up-to-date as the publication date!

The trepidation with which sailing vessels must have approached the western land mass of the UK must have been extreme in anything but fine weather given the huge leeways involved in some of the navigation tips provided!

This selection of pilotage covers an area west side of Scilly...

and makes great mention of the muddy bottom in the area - that information being hugely important to sailing ships who used a lead weight filled with tallow to help determine the nature of the bottom they were sailing over...

on the end of a line marked to indicate the depth...

today's technology allows for a level of information and accuracy that those sailors in their heavy sweaters and leather boots would be amazed...

and all displayed for the benefit of the skipper of a modern trawler in a range of wheelhouse displays...

and a muddy bottom of course means one thing only to fishermen - prawns! - and so it is we find the half dozen Scottish prawn boats currently working out of Newlyn fishing along the Jones Bank west side of Scilly - the AIS plots are based on the frequency of AIS tracks over time which now clearly show the Jones, North West and Labadie banks traditionally fished by prawn boats mainly from Brittany but increasingly by Irish vessels.

Pelagic port - Bonito tuna, mackerel and Cornish sardines.

Gourmet dining.........

the fair's in town for Golowan Festival........

low water at Wherry Town boating pool........

apparently so, look out Tuesday evening.........

spider time..........

in a case of mass insomnia, the boys from IFCA were up well early this morning measuring brown crab from the Intuition........

as the boat landed to a waiting vivier lorry.......

a bongo at a time........

this can only be done when the vivier aboard the boat has been pumped dry.......

down the quay there's an unusual set of beam trawl gear not seen in these parts before.......

aboard the Troon registered Solea..........

very light gear hanging from a hydrofoil type beam........

first time the market has seen any quantity of Bonito tuna........

created some interest from the buyers.......

and an intrigued Ollie ponders the species in question.......

early season Sardina Pilchardus.........

and a good weekend's work for the mackerel fleet.......

with the might megrim currently topping the list of flat fish being championed by many for ethical fishing reasons given the healthy state of the stock........

the Gallic prawn boats will be pulling aboard good lifts of prawns at the moment judging by the number of boxes the beams are catching!