Sardines galore! Busy start to the week in Newlyn.

Plenty of fish ready for auction to start of the week off in Newlyn...

inshore trawl plaice...

plenty of good sized haddock from the netter Ocean Pride...

and a massive haul of plaice from the beam trawler Sapphire II...

with a much reduced catch of megrim - which would be her preferred target species during the summer months...

just the one black bream...

the buyers home in on the stacks of flat fish...

 Cap'n Haddock or Village People? young Mr Cleave keeps 'em guessing...

top tub gurnard...

heavy mixed fishing with the inshore trawler Harvest Reaper...

pristine turbot...

and monk tails from netter Tracie Clare...

while the bulk of the Ocean Pride's trip was made up of MSC Certified hake...

proudly wearing their Newlyn Harbour visitor's 'teabag' workcoats...

Falfish give new members of staff a close up look at where the fish which they process start their journey from the quayside...

the bulk of the trip from the beamer Sapphire II...

cuttlefish by the ton...

despite the weather the local handliners put ashore a few herring...

and plenty of mackerel...

with deck lights ablaze, just under four weeks to the shortest day mornings in Newlyn are dark enough...

ex-trawler skipper Edward Harvey starts his day net-setting well before sunrise...

the quayside bears tributes to young apprentice engineer Conor Moseley who sadly lost his life while working on one of the port's beam trawlers lat week...

looking out over the bay and harbour, the Newlyn fisherman's memorial...

as the ring-netter Resolute searches for sardine marks...

later on in the day the fleet are back to sea again and hauling just a few hundred yards off the harbour...

with the Resolute hauling the Mayflower readies to shoot her net...

the Pride of Cornwall is surrounded by thousands of hungry gull and gannets...

late to the race, Golden Harvest heads for the gaps...

with crab supplies flooding the market there's ver 8 tons of live brown crab aboard the Intuition waiting for a buyer!

Brixham beam trawler, Margaret of Ladram smashes Brixham port record

Waterdance’s beam trawler Margaret of Ladram smashed Brixham fish market’s record this week, landing the biggest grossing trip the port has ever seen.
After landing in Brixham, skipper Adam Cowan-Dickie turned Margaret of Ladram around and was back at sea when the confirmation of the £126,000 grossing came through.

This trip was also his first back at sea after travelling to Japan to watch his son Luke play for England in the rugby world cup.

Waterdance’s beam trawler Margaret of Ladram in Newlyn.

After landing in Brixham, skipper Adam Cowan-Dickie turned Margaret of Ladram around and was back at sea when the confirmation of the £126,000 grossing came through.

This trip was also his first back at sea after travelling to Japan to watch his son Luke play for England in the rugby world cup.


‘I’ve been managing my sole quota and days at sea for the last eleven months to be able to land this trip,’ he said.

‘I found this patch of good fishing just before the World Cup started, but we weren’t able to fish it because of bad weather. I obviously couldn’t miss the chance to see my son play in the World Cup, so I was keeping my fingers crossed for two and a half weeks while I was away watching Luke, hoping that nobody else would find it.’

Fortunately, when he was back on board Margaret of Ladram after the trip to Japan, the fish were still there and hadn’t been touched.

‘What people don’t realise is that this catch was caught sustainably. I have my sole quota, which is what can be sustainably caught, given to me in January every year and it’s down to me to manage this quota as I see fit through the year,’ he explained.

‘With fifteen years of careful management, the sole population off Brixham has been increasing year on year. These quotas are set by a scientific study of the fish population which is reviewed every year based on sole monitoring to allow only a sustainable catch to be caught.’

Last of the hunters or the next scientists?

Ignored

For years fishermen have decried the world of fisheries research because all too often their experience of scientific research has been frustrated by the perceived gulf between those that research and those that actually go down to the sea every day to fish. Huge research vessels using totally outdated trawls  fishing for species in areas known (by the fishermen) to be devoid of said species or at times when said species are less likely to be caught - compare your haddock catch by day and by night on the same grounds!

Ed Hinds just published thesis tackles tis issue and sets out a vision for how fishermen may play a significant role in fisheries research in the future - there a handful of UK fisheries research vessels and 5,400 fishing vessels - every one capable of [laying a role in research given the resources.

Abstract

The concept of fishers’ knowledge is one that has largely been marginalised in mainstream fisheries management, often characterised by soft ecological narratives and social insights when the bias of fisheries managers is for hard quantitative data of a biological nature.

This thesis makes an original contribution firstly, by situating the debate on the contested concept of fishers’ knowledge within the political context of traditional fisheries science, which has been undergoing a paradigm crisis and demands for reform.

Secondly, I draw a broad conceptual difference between a reformist account of fishers’ knowledge and a more radical discourse which positions fishers’ knowledge as an alternative to scientific enquiry. It is argued that a radical approach would be misguided, because fishers’ knowledge is not as
effective as scientific data for assessing fish stocks. Instead, a case is made to continue to use fishers’ knowledge to explain remaining uncertainties in scientific stock assessment, and to explore important
aspects of a fishery that other research approaches cannot. Specifically, it should become one of the central information pillars for conducting ecosystem-based fisheries management. Additionally, I advance fishers’ strategies as a developing concept that if understood, could for the first time allow managers to comprehend not just ‘how’ fishing effort occurs, but ‘why’.

Through a detailed analysis of a rich case study on the west coast of Ireland, these arguments are fleshed out to show how and why the concept of fishers’ knowledge may be relevant for resolving serious problems in fisheries politics and policy. More broadly the thesis covers new ground in areas of study relating to local and experiential knowledge, ecosystem-based management and the political dimensions of environmental sustainability and natural resource management. It would be an interesting point of reference for professionals researching these topics.


Paper: Last of the hunters or the next scientists? 
Ed Hind from the School of Political Science and Sociology at the National University of Ireland, Galway.

Penultimate November #FishyFriday in Newlyn.

Shark evil-eye...

check out those bream baked whole (but gutted) recipes from our top chefs...

only in Newlyn - Cornish MSC Certified hake...

big trips of hake from the orange duo, Silver Dawn and the Stelissa...

pristine ray wings...

while the netter Annie May landed some cracking monk tails...

a smattering of herring were on the market again from the inshore boats...

crab paws Mousehole Fish bound...

an uncomfortable day for the handline fleet so these fish were hard won...

these cracking whiting were still sporting all their scales...

a big turbot like this will likely as much end up on the tables of a big restaurant...

monk livers - a favourite of Bruce Rennie, chef at The Shore restaurant in Penzance...

another fish restaurant favourite, red mullet...

lovely lemons...

and of course a few John Dory which make such good eating...

as do brill...

trawlers, beam trawlers and netters all catch haddock...

another good landing of ray...

hake don't come much bigger than 6-7 kilo hake...

there's a traffic jam outside the market this morning...

as the forklifts wait patiently for another load of boxed fish to be loaded...

heading back to a pontoon berth, Tom on the Harvest Reaper decided that there's was too much ground sea for him to fish well today.