A very Fishy Friday to all blog followers!

Catch a flavour of the fish auction on Newlyn's fish market in the early hours.......

That's a cracking Dover nestled in the ice.......

as are the Sparkling Line's pollock......

at this time of year many fish are full of roe......

even the beam trawler Twilight can't leave the big bass alone........

whole monk tails just begging to find a home in an oven near you......

the greater striped cuttlefish shows off.......

more shining examples of prime white fish.......

and a box of roes to boot........

plus a few kilos of bass for the Britannia IV.......

this half box of cod represents 15% of a boats MONTHLY cod quota for Area VII a - caught in one net.........

nearly ready to set sail for the rest of the tide......

evidence of fresh sardine landing during the night, 14 tonnes from the Lyonesse.........

a sight more familiar to the port of Fleetwood, the Isadale is in town......

viewed from the bow.......

brand new beam trawls being put together for the Cornishman is taking shape on the quay......

Angle's lifeboat is on passage.......

the three Belgian flagged beamers are back in town again.......

that's one big squid Mr Smart, some serious deep-fried squid rings in the offing!.......

a little creativity along the memorial fence.

West of the Scillies

There's an interesting collection of French trawlers and Danish mid-water (pelagic) boats working west side of the Scilles at the momet.

Quality Cornish hake goes down a storm in the Royal Boprough

rex goldsmith ‏ @rexgoldsmith

•  
•  
•  
• · Details

@ThroughTheGaps the good people of Chelsea are loving their hake. Especially caught from that fantastic boat @AjaxAH32. God bless her

Now this is just the sort of message we love to see being fed back from our customers up in the smoke - nice one Rex! Been a while since I had my bonnet trimmed in Vidal Sassoons round the corner!

The Apprentice goes fishing - Monty Halls in Cadgwith - BBC2 last night at 8pm, tonight at midnight in HD!!

Apprentice fisherman Monty Halls on the beach at Cadgwith with top lobster pot man Nigel Legge.

Showing for the next five weeks every Wednesday night at 8pm, marine biologiost Monty Hall finds out just what it takes to actually make a living from the sea in Cornish waters. In episode one, an Introduction to the Skippers from Cadgwith Cove who Monty Halls is about to work alongside, local Skipper Jonathan Tonkin - 'Tonks' - gives his first impressions of Monty. This is first in a series of six episodes; in later shows Monty will have his understanding of ethical fishing vs making a living in the context of modern fishing methods put to the test when he sails in some of the bigger boats from Newlyn.


Monty Halls is a writer, explorer, television presenter and public speaker. A former Royal Marines officer who worked for Nelson Mandela on the peace process in South Africa, he left the services in 1996 to pursue a career in leading expeditions. Having achieved a First Class Honors degree in marine biology, over the next decade he circumnavigated the globe four times on various projects, leading multi-national teams in some of the most demanding environments on earth. Notable expeditions included an anti poaching project in the high montane grasslands of the Nyika Plateau in northern Malawi, the discovery of a sunken city off the coast of Tamil Nadu in India, and a (successful) attempt to find and photograph a rare crocodile species in the mountain pools of the Raspaculo Basin in Central America. In 2002 he was awarded the Bish Medal by the Scientific Exploration Society for his services to exploration.

Hake back on the menu!

Marks seen on the echosounder - part 1

Of all the instruments available to the skipper in the wheelhouse, the electronic echo-sounder still plays a major role in the detection of fish and reading of the seabed or 'botttom'. Early models, using sound waves beamed straight down from the hull of the boat, used a roll of paper that continually moved across to display the results received by the transducer from the bottom. Today's meters display in colour on a screen - pale blue being the weakest signal return all the way through to blood red indicating something much more solid.  A soft bottom like mud shows up as a thin red line with a fat orange/yellow section, a harder bottom loses the yellow and becomes a thick red as the hardness increases.


In this photo taken aboard the Ajax as she steamed for Newlyn two large marks of fish - thought to be herring - can be seen. The large white number indicates the depth of the water in fathoms - for those not familiar, a fathom is six feet or 1.82 metres. That means that the shoal of fish is around 15 times a fathom high - around 90 feet - that's a lot of fish! The screen is split with the lower half showing an expanded section from the bottom up to 3 fathoms - a typical working configuration for netters and trawlers wanting to interpret the water under the boat.

Click on the image to see how the echosounder 'meters' the bottom.

Great British chefs say - eat hake!

Image courtesy of Great British Chefs

Wit the Ajax landing fish on Newlyn and Brixham fish markets this morning - here's a cahnce to indulge in a dish using the fish with a real hint of Spain in the ingredients - chorizo! Cannned chickpeas are OK to use too!


Celebrate great British food like hake along with all the other home-grown delights that are now in season by visiting the Great British Chefs web site for more recipes and ideas from great British Chefs and restaurants. There's even an app for your mobile phone too to help keep in touch with what our top chefs and other fish fanatics are up to around the UK.


The salt of the chorizo perfectly balances the earthy chickpeas and fresh coriander in this delicious fish dish from Geoffrey Smeddle. You'll need to soak your chickpeas overnight for this recipe so make sure you plan ahead - alternatively you can buy tinned, cooked chickpeas and save yourself some prep time.


Ingredients: (for four big British appetites!)


4 lemons, three cut into wedges and one for juicing 
1 carrot, peeled and halved lengthways 
1 slice of bacon 150g of chorizo sausage 
1 onion, peeled and cut into wedges 
150ml of double cream salt pepper olive oil 
1 bunch of coriander, leaves chopped 
500g of dried chickpeas, soaked overnight in cold water 
2kg of fillet of hake, scaled and pin boned

1.

Soak the chickpeas in cold water, ensuring there is twice the volume of water to chickpeas

2.

Once soaked, strain off the water, place the chickpeas in a colander and rinse well under cold running water

3.

Transfer them to a large pan and add the carrot, onion, bacon and a good glug of olive oil

4.

Add enough water to rise at least a couple of inches above the chickpeas, then simmer until very tender, keeping an eye on the water in case it needs topping up

5.

Once the chickpeas are cooked, let them cool in the liquor, removing the veg and bacon

6.

Once cool, take about a fifth of the chickpeas out of the liquid, place in the jug of a blender with the cream and, if needed, a little cooking liquid, then process to a coarse purée . Store in a tub until needed

7.

Place the chorizo in a pan of cold water, bring to a simmer and then strain immediately. Once cool enough to handle, peel off the skin, cut the meat into 1cm dice and place in a pan large enough to hold the chickpeas too

8.

Cook on a moderate heat until the chorizo is gently sizzling, add the rest of the chickpeas and enough cooking liquid so the pan is moist

9.

When hot, add the chickpea puree, taste for seasoning and keep warm while cooking the hake

10.

Heat a large non-stick pan and add a generous amount of oil. Season the skin of the hake with salt and place in the pan skin side down, frying each piece for about 4 minutes until the skin crisps

11.

Turn the fish over and remove the pan from the heat. Add a good squeeze of lemon juice to the pan, spooning the juices over the fish as it frys

12.

Add the coriander to the chickpeas, taste for seasoning then arrange on a platter. Place the fillets of hake on top, spoon on the pan juices and serve