Tiz a foggy #FishyFriday

Just the two beam trawlers this morning...

which means the market is well supplied with bottom dwelling fish like these rays...

monk fish...

ling...

Dover sole...

and the lesser spotted plaice...

a handful of octopus...

while the netter, Joy of Ladram bulked some big pollack...

and hake along with a few...

pouts which, like many fish at this time of year are ready to spawn...

auctioneer Ryan was giving the mic the benefit of his view on the state of the nation...

which, unlike the this fish box is definitely not in the black...

the sepia ink of which seems to get everywhere when the cuttles...

are landed on the market...

 in bulk..

by the beam trawlers...

along with a few red mullet...

while the handline boys have enjoyed more settled weather and picked away a few good mackerel...

fueled up and ready to go, the Three Jays is all set for another day at sea...

dreaming of fish like this...

spot the interloper in these mackerel...

a must attend meeting with IFCA for all inshore men and anyone else who wants to stay in the know.

Fisheries Minister George Eustice - Fishing implications post Brexit

Subject: Brexit: Agriculture and fisheries

Witnesses: George Eustice MP, Minister of State for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

International Women's Day and Women at sea - in Alaska

Today is #InternationalWomansDay - so it would be fitting to pay tribute to tribute to a few of the few women in the local fishing industry...

like Sam, who not only works as an observer for Cefas but crews aboard her husband's netter, Sea Spray...

or staff at FalFish...

or Elaine who manages Stevenson's wet fish shop - back in the day there were some notable characters handlining for mackerel - anyone fishing out of Newlyn around then will well remember Carol with Robin on the Quo Vadis' pithy tongue crackling over the VHF or Kim who fished with Ian Johns on the Aquarius - often family firms have women in key roles...

like Emma Rowse, the other half and business partner of skipper and fleet manager, Mark Rowse of the the crab fishing and processing company, Rowse Fishing...

most notably locally is of course Elisabeth Stevenson - but women actually at sea are very much the exception - not so across the pond however in Alaska it seems things are different...

156° West but pretty much on the same Longitude as Fairisle is the fishing town of Homer...

where, after 15 years of maritime experience and five seasons spent as a marine technician on research vessels in Antartica, Amy Schaub bought her own Seine salmon fishing boat, the Norsel in 2015...

it looks colder outside the fishroom than in! For some superb photographs and an insight into the lives of the fisherwomen of Alaska you can read the full story in the current issue of Vogue online magazine here:

Wednesday fish on Newlyn auction.

Last evening, the netter Briatnnia V is just returning to her berth after putting ashore her hake catch...

and you can tell from the lighting down the quay...

that there was some heavy precipitation as the Met Office is wont to call rain...

this morning it looks as it there were no boats to be auctioned, but, keeping up the age old Newlyn tradition of not acknowledging boats that fish with nets (as opposed to trawls or beam trawls)... 

there were about 800 boxes of fish from four netters starting with the New Harmony...

who landed some cracking whiting...

and monk tails...

while the Britannia V put ashore one of the biggest landings of haddocks in memory...

along with pollack form the Karen of Ladram...

at this time of year the boats like to keep the best of the roes...

from big whitefish like pollack from the inshore netter, Girl Pamela...

which brought the buyers out of the fridge...

all keen to bid on the busy market...

with the price of hake for this morning's boats almost halving from Monday's very expensive start to the week due to the country being largely deprived of quality fish thanks to widespread North East Atlantic gales...

making the MSC Certified hake...

the stand-out fish of the morning auction...

the lights on the boats signs of an ealry muster for some of the crews.

Painting Party on the Quay - this Saturday 10am - 5pm

This Saturday there will be at least three historic luggers berthed inside the Old Harbour in Newly, recreating a scene reminiscent of the last few hundred years of fishing in the area.  It was scenes like this, and the workers involved in the fishing community that were to draw in a number of trail-blazing and innovative artists that were eventually to become known as the Newlyn School...

Harold Harvey's painting has luggers with their sails dropped...

while John Carrick's work has two luggers with their sails hoisted

another shows the harbour around 1887 when you can see the South Pier is under construction...

more recently local artist and ex-St Ives harbourmaster, Eric Ward captured the last lugger's Painting Day on the Pier with the Barnabas, Happy Return and Ripple  against the quay...

when some artists arrived very early...

 in the day to capture the scene...

like the sadly now departed, Bernard Evans...

before the crews go on with the job of painting the hull above...

 and anti-fouling below the waterline.  Everybody and anybody is welcome to come along from 10am but a special invite is there for all those with a brush, pencil, pen, crayon, pastel or anything else that will make a mark to come and capture the scene!

Open letter from the Association of Line Caught fishermen to LECLERC, System U and INTERMARCHE: the survival of the bar is in your hands!

This is a letter from handline bass fisherman, Gwen Pennarun in Brittany - who makes a living solely from catching bass using hook and line. He has written to the bosses of the big three French supermarkets asking them not to sell bass caught by trawlers or industrial fishing.

The Breton fishermen have their own website, Association des igneurs de la pointe de Bretagne website similar to our own Line Caught website that allows you to track individual fish back to the boat and fisherman who caught it!



So, to the letter:

President of the association des ligneurs

To the attention of :

Serge Papin, System U

Michel-Édouard Leclerc, E. Leclerc

Thierry Cotillard, Intermarché

Distributors, the survival of the bar is in your hands!

February 23, 2017


Gentlemen,

My name is Gwen Pennarun, I am a professional fisherman in Brittany, a bass handliner for more than thirty years. My activity rests entirely on this species, and with it, my family and my future. I am writing this letter to you as President of the Pointe de Bretagne Pointe Association and on behalf of all the fishermen who recognize themselves in the values ​​of a small-scale fishery.

Our job is to capture the bar at the line, exclusively . It is the most gentle and ecological fishing technique. It does not damage the funds. It makes it possible to specifically target the desired fish. It is also the only technique that allows to reject with water all fish too small, alive! We fish little but our fish is of exceptional quality, and it sells well. Our motto is not to make volume but to fish little to sell better .

The Pointe de Bretagne association has imposed a biological rest for its members for many years between February and March. In addition to reducing fishing pressure over the year, this rest allows fish to reproduce during the critical breeding season .

Unfortunately, it is during this period that the bar is particularly vulnerable because it regroups to spawn and is allowed to capture in astronomical quantities by large trawlers or gillnets . The latter literally ransacked the bar populations in the Channel, pushing the trollers out of the fishery or outright leaving the fishery. In addition to being an intolerable fishing practice, disrupting the spawning of fish, over-exploiting a fragile species, the fish they put on the market is disastrous and sold at a ridiculously low price, less than 40% Price that we get from it .

Further south, in the Bay of Biscay, we have seen for several years a very worrying decrease in bar resources. Our catches in 2016 have reached their lowest level in history, and we are very concerned that the bar resource in this area will collapse as it did in the English Channel.

As every year at the same time, we see the avalanche of promotions of your banners on this bar of poor quality, resulting from fishing techniques not respectful of the environment and the resource. By realizing this, you become complicit in the over-exploitation of this precious species, which made us live, and hence our own disappearance.

That is why we appeal to your responsibility and ask you to stop selling wild bar during this period.

Please accept our cordial greetings.

Gwen Pennarun

PS: For those who would like to support this request, you can sign the petition here:

Https://www.change.org/p/leclerc-system-supply-for-intermarchitecture-buy-of-bar-from-the-Of-reproduction?

Thank you!

Live! - George Eustace on the implications of Brexit for Fishing

Tune in on Wednesday to hear fisheries minister, George Eustice on the implications of Brexit for Fishing, Wednesday March 8th at 2pm.

Bookmark this link for live coverage of the debate.