Well done guys! - Through the Gaps hits 500 readers!

Onwards and upwards! - after 2,795 posts the number of 'Through the Gaps' fishy followers broke though the 500 barrier yesterday as the blog continues its inexorable rise in reader numbers - excellent news for all those boats who land their fish on the market at Newlyn - a sure sign that more and more buyers, merchants, chefs and fishmongers are turning their attention via the blog to source information and news of the quality fish sold at auction on Newlyn fish market. Live updates to both Twitter and Facebook pages are posted from the blog automatically.


Here's an example below from top London wet fish shop, the Chelsea Fishmonger's Twitter page showing the reaction from customers now that the Ajax has her own web site to add to the interest! Never mind action from the Trawlermen north of the border, there's plenty to follow down this end of the country!

rex goldsmith ‏@rexgoldsmith

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@AjaxAH32 customers are now asking for hake caught on your boat. You must be doing something right!

Fishy Friday here again

While the Cornish Sardine season draws to a close it's time for some some work aboard the White Heather........

cod are never going to win the Miss Marine World.......

in the red and in the black.......

they always look such happy beasts do the red gurnard.......

the cuttles are still thick on the ground for the beam trawlers.......

signs of the scallop season emerge, freshly painted Golden Promise all set for the summer......

with a tidy set of seven dredges a side.....

the rope in the net hauler shows how the middle roller provides the tension against the other two rollers when hauling.......

rings of the ring net.......

knockdown outside the Mission.

Discards - how do fishermen feel about the official view from Defra?

A ‘discard’ is any type of animal caught by fishing gear and thrown back into the sea, alive or dead.  Discarded unwanted catch (often referred to as by-catch) can be any commercially valuable marine species, such as commonly eaten fish, or any other marine animal which is caught accidentally.

Discarding is not good for the environment and is costly for fishermen.  It is also seen as a destructive and wasteful practice.

Why are there discards?

Discarding is a complex issue occurring for a number of reasons:

• Quota restrictions: quota limits are in place to protect fish stocksfrom overfishing.  Fishermen, who run out of quota for one species, may continue to fish for other species for which they still have quota and discard fish where their quota has been exhausted. These ‘over-quota’ discards (quota species discarded above the legal minimum landing size) are estimated to account for around 22% of English and Welsh discards. Catch quotas offer a potential solution to this problem (see ‘Tackling the discard problem’ section below).
• High grading: where fishermen discard fish that is worth less money in order to optimise the value of their catches. The UK is operating a European high grading ban in seas around the UK to stop this behaviour.
• Under the legal Minimum Landing Size: a Minimum Landing Size (MLS) is technical rule that aims to protect small/juvenile commercial fish from being targeted and sold by fishermen. The mixed nature of species found in most European fisheries means that one size of net mesh is rarely suitable for all species.  As a consequence many fish below the MLS may be caught and then discarded. Around 24% of estimated discards are quota species below the legal MLS and were too small to land. Much work has taken place in the UK to improve the selectivity of fishing nets/gears.
• Market conditions: some species will be discarded because they are not popular to eat and so unlikely to sell in fish markets. An estimated 54% of discards (2008) are discarded for reasons relating to weak/absent markets. The Fishing for the Markets project aims to address this issue (see section below).
• By-catch of protected species: species that are listed as a priority for conservation (e.g. whales and dolphins, seabirds and some sharks) may be accidently caught by  fishermen, and some can die before or after being returned to the sea.
• Unwanted benthos: some species (for example, starfish, seaweed, worms, anemones) that live on, in or near the ocean floor are not intentionally targeted by fisheries but may be discarded if they are tangled in fishing nets.

Tackling the discard problem

Defra is working to reduce discards through various initiatives:

At a European Level: We are involved in discussions with the European Commission and other Member States to ensure that new ways of reducing discards can be taken up at European Community level.

• The reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) in 2012 provides us with an important opportunity to reduce discards.  We want to encourage and enable commercial fishermen to make long-term business decisions though giving them greater responsibility to safeguard fish stocks and reduce discards.
• UK and Denmark Fully Documented Catch Quota Pilots. The UK Government, in partnership with Denmark, is trialling an alternative system of managing fish stocks in the North Sea. Rather than using the traditional method of counting catches on land, this alternative method counts catches at sea.  The aim of the trial is to understand whether this type of management system is possible in EU fisheries, if it can reduce discards, and encourage fishermen to fish more selectively. Interim results look promising and we aim to extend the trials in 2011 to gather more evidence for CFP reform.

In the UK: Defra is using fresh approaches and ideas to reduce discards. Projects include:

• Social marketing research studies to understand and change discard behaviours of fishermen, e.g. Project 50% in 2009, in which scientists and fishermen working together reduced discards in the Brixham trawl fleet by 52%; and a current project on trawlers in the Irish Sea.
• Gear modifications trials that try to reduce the capture of unwanted marine species, such as the current Looe (South West) otter trawl pilot.
• The Fishing for the markets project, a new initiative looking to encourage consumption of under-utilised, sustainable species that are often discarded.  The project aims to gather knowledge and experience from a range of individuals and organisations along the supply chain about existing market practices and un-tapped potential for under-utilised species. See Eating a wider range of fish.

For more information

Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas)
Discards and gear selectivity:

• Fishing gear technology - Improving selectivity – reducing discards(Link to CEFAS website)

European Commission
Discards and catch records:

• Unwanted catches and discards (Link to the EC website)
• Electronic recording and reporting system (Link to the EC website)

Seafish
Discards and Electronic Monitoring systems:

• Discards in fishing
• Catch Quota Management (Link to Danish Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries website)

Monty Halls, the fisherman's apprentice - sick as a dog!

Marine biologist Monty Halls explores the challenges facing the British fishing industry by living and working as a traditional Cornish fisherman. In this episode he goes it alone and soon learns that making a living as an inshore fisherman is a lot harder than he thought. A bout of violent sea sickness puts the whole project in jeopardy.


Two quotes from the local boys stood out addressing Monty's battles with the elements, "I know the tides and I know the wind" and, "it's all part of the game"........

Out on the water for his first trip 'flying solo' hauling his four strings of 48 pots......

listen to some words from ex-Newlyn fishermen Jonathan Fletcher extolling the virtues of a life at sea....... 

and up pops the first of four crabs, hardly enough to make a dent in the 15Kg in total he needs to keep the shellfish buyer happy.......

things look better during the second trip, when the pots have had a three day lay owing to weather, Monty bags his first 'blue'.......

and back ashore just manages to scrape up enough kilos of crab to land......

back home, doing the maths and adding up the fixed costs things are looking bleak in the early days.....

struggling with making a wage Monty decides to see how it is done aboard the Scorpio.......

but as the weather turns so does his stomach......

after a short bout of hanging over the side calling for his pals Hughie and Arthur, Monty gets back on his feet......

but only for a short while when he dramatically succumbs to a severe bout of yawning and dangerously passes out on deck......

determined not to be put off he ventures forth once again for a spot of tangle netting and picks up his first monk

in next week's episode he takes a trip across the channel to see why the French prize these fish so highly......

and looks at a very different fish eating culture.

Watch episode 2 here on BBC2 iPlayer.

EU Fisheries policy 2012 - a new basis for sustainably caught fish for food.

North Atlantic SeaFood Forum, Oslo, 7th March 2012


Speaking: Mogens Schou

Background: The Common Fisheries Policy is being revised. 


It is the most important revision since the policy was adopted in 1983. The policy agreed in 1983 primarily concerned allocation of rights, while the presentproposal is the most important step ever to establish a policy where we use our marine resources.  To the full of the reproductive capabilities of commercial stocks  In respect of the ecosystem boundaries The Commission, the Council and the Parliament have sounded a clear commitment to a new policy for the sustainable use of marine resources as a basis for generation of wealth to fishing communities and supply of food for the European consumer. Denmark, now having the presidency of the Council will make its utmost to establish a political understanding – a general approach – in June in support of the new policy, and hopefully the formal decision of this policy will be taken at the end of 2012. The policy should mark a beginning for a development where all forces –regulatory and economic are aligned for the same end. It should also mark the beginning where we in the fishing area get order in our own house and start demonstrating the wealth fisheries can generate in the accelerating competition for marine space


See the full text and PowerPoint slides from the North Atlantic Forum talk from Mogens Schou here:

Reflections on the new European Maritime and Fisheries Fund

Today's addres from Commissioner Maria Damanaki:
Hearing on the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund
European Parliament, 7 March 2012

The Fund will help deliver the ambitious objectives of the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy and will help fishermen in the transition towards sustainable fishing, as well as coastal communities in the diversification of their economies. The fund will finance projects that create new jobs and improve quality of life along European coasts. Red tape will be cut so that beneficiaries have easy access to financing.

This new fund will replace the existing European Fisheries Fund and a number of other instruments. The proposed envelope amounts to € 6.5 billion for the period 2014 to 2020.

"Dear Mr Chairman, dear Mr Cadec, dear Members of the Parliament, Thank you for inviting me here today to discuss the Maritime and Fisheries Fund of the future.

This fund is a key component of the fisheries reform package on which this House will adopt its position in the coming months. The new Fund is different from its predecessor in many ways. I have designed it to support the key objectives of the fisheries reform. It is designed to help us achieve environmental sustainability and also deliver the social and economic sustainability that you rightfully demand for the people working in the fishing industry.

Let me explain how. Our reform plan starts from the premise that if we go for environmental sustainability, economic and social sustainability will follow. This is not ideology but a pragmatic approach for the management of natural resources. This is true. And we have evidence: 135 million euro is the extra money that fishermen made between 2011 and 2012 because stocks were better managed than in the past. 135 million euro, ladies and gentlemen! And that amount can still increase sustainably every year, if we get the reform right. An independent body, the New Economics Foundation, reckons that every year in the EU27 the fishing industry could have an extra 1.8 billion euro - almost three times the subsidies we grant; and we could create around 83 thousand jobs – a third of the current employment in the EU fishing sector - if stocks were brought back to sustainable levels.

Reaching sustainable fishing levels can be done relatively quickly. In fact it has been done in a number of fisheries. There are 20 stocks now fished sustainably in Europe. There were only 5 in 2009. So working toward MSY is possible, but we have a long way to go. As the French Fisheries Science Association (Association Française d'Halieutique) says in a study published last week: "We cannot be satisfied by a situation where 40% of the stocks assessed are outside safe biological limits". Turning now to discards: reducing discards is also possible. Right now there are at least seventy anti-discard initiatives going on around Europe - carried out either by the fishermen, who are finding ways to fish more selectively; or by European retailers, who are delisting species from their supply whenever stocks are endangered or non-selective fishing techniques are used. My reform plan proposes a gradual phase-out and gives the industry adequate support for the change. How? First of all, fishermen will get financial support for testing more selective gears and techniques and for purchasing already tested ones.

St Ives mackerel man Simon's in the fish!

A Taste of St Ives brought almost to your door - here's a chance to see inshore fisherman Simon Rouncefield at work in St Ives Bay fishing from his punt SS170. Bet Monty Halls could have done with seeing this before his trip to Cadgwith!