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Friday, 29 August 2008

Mike Mahon makes a stand over giving away rather than dumping fish.

Grimmy Mike makes the front pages again in his one-man campaign to combat what he sees as a crime against humanity when it comes to dumping pefectly good but over-quota fish on the seabed. Mike has been giving away fish in Newlyn to visiting yellow-wellies (in return for a donation to the Mission or RNLI) and others in defiance of the law. In a small inshore trawler like Mike's it is nigh on impossible to avoid catching certain specieas of fish as they are found all over the grounds.

Bizarrely, the South West is seeing more haddock of late than for many, many years. The current quota is 500kg (although if you read the article in the Western Morning News' website it reads 500 tons! - he should be so lucky!!). The last thing fishermen want out of this action is a modified ruling on discards. 'Through the Gaps' spoke to an inshore fisherman today who no longer records the monk heads left in his nets by foraging seals as they count against his quota - in other words fishermen are forced to mis-report and for good reason - they need to stay in business!

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