"Les Pêcheurs de Bretagne", the largest organization of fishermen in Europe requires its members to suspend their hake, until April 6. This decision was taken to regulate a market in trouble, a victim of the weather.
"Fishermen in Brittany" with 800 ships, 3000 sailors has asked its members to suspend their fishing hake. In a statement, the organization explains the reasons for this drastic decision, scheduled for two weeks, until April 6.
A victim of weather: "For several weeks, fishermen continue to face the onslaught of weather and market After private fishing during successive storms (late 2013 - early 2014) fishermen can again returning to sea and provide a quality fish are now subject to the law of contract: purchase prices are at their lowest. " Fishermen Britain also recalls that since January 1, it no longer receives public funding (fish in France enjoyed a withdrawal price arrangement) to support its members in case they do not sell all their production to different auctions. Since March 20th, all hake fishery practiced in midwater trawl (net which does not touch the seabed) is suspended in order to regulate the market and expect a return to normal . This restriction does not only apply to this species: pollock is also affected by limitations for an indefinite period. This measure relates to a total of thirty, in Lorient and Guilvinec. "We currently have a crisis in demand, " regretted Yves Foëzon, deputy director of the organization, told AFP. It calls for the establishment of a "true interprofessional" so that "all industry players work together" to face such market pressures.
By Emilie Colin Published 03/25/2014
Monday 31 March 2014
New waterborne police unit will patrol Newlyn and Penzance harbours
Police in west Cornwall are taking to the water to tackle boat crime and other illegal activity around our coast.
The West Cornwall Marine Crime Unit is now on patrol after receiving specialist training from an organisation that supports Cornwall’s marine sector. Operating from Falmouth and covering the south coast, the unit will provide a presence in harbours like Newlyn and Penzance where criminals can operate.
The unit aims to prevent thefts of boats and engines, antisocial behaviour and other illegal activity on the water – like the recent spate of lobster thefts from Newlyn fishermen.
The team are existing west Cornwall officers and Cornwall Marine Network trained 35 of them in VHF radio use, sea survival and powerboat handling.
PC Barry Nicholas, one of the members of the unit, said: “We had a number of high-profile marine thefts a year ago and in one case up to £30,000-worth of outboard motors were stolen in a weekend, so we identified a need for a greater police presence out on the water.”
The unit will provide a year-round visible deterrent, and as well as thieves will target illegal fishing, thefts, drug-trafficking or boat users who are speeding or under the influence of alcohol.
Paul Wickes, chief executive of the Cornwall Marine Network, said: “We were delighted to work in partnership with the police to support this very positive initiative.
“It’ll provide added security to Cornwall’s maritime businesses and those who enjoy time out on the water. “We used our experience as a training provider for the marine sector to draw up a training plan and source the funding, which allowed the unit to be created.”
Read more: http://www.cornishman.co.uk/New-waterborne-police-unit-patrol-Newlyn-Penzance/story-20881827-detail/story.html#ixzz2xYIsJ7iN
The West Cornwall Marine Crime Unit is now on patrol after receiving specialist training from an organisation that supports Cornwall’s marine sector. Operating from Falmouth and covering the south coast, the unit will provide a presence in harbours like Newlyn and Penzance where criminals can operate.
The unit aims to prevent thefts of boats and engines, antisocial behaviour and other illegal activity on the water – like the recent spate of lobster thefts from Newlyn fishermen.
The team are existing west Cornwall officers and Cornwall Marine Network trained 35 of them in VHF radio use, sea survival and powerboat handling.
PC Barry Nicholas, one of the members of the unit, said: “We had a number of high-profile marine thefts a year ago and in one case up to £30,000-worth of outboard motors were stolen in a weekend, so we identified a need for a greater police presence out on the water.”
The unit will provide a year-round visible deterrent, and as well as thieves will target illegal fishing, thefts, drug-trafficking or boat users who are speeding or under the influence of alcohol.
Paul Wickes, chief executive of the Cornwall Marine Network, said: “We were delighted to work in partnership with the police to support this very positive initiative.
“It’ll provide added security to Cornwall’s maritime businesses and those who enjoy time out on the water. “We used our experience as a training provider for the marine sector to draw up a training plan and source the funding, which allowed the unit to be created.”
Read more: http://www.cornishman.co.uk/New-waterborne-police-unit-patrol-Newlyn-Penzance/story-20881827-detail/story.html#ixzz2xYIsJ7iN
Australia wins whaling case against Japan in The Hague
UN ruling ...AUSTRALIA has won an international lawsuit against Japan’s Southern Ocean whaling program and the International Court of Justice has ordered Tokyo to cease the killing immediately.
Presiding Judge Peter Tomka of Slovakia said Japan had not justified the large number of minke whales it takes under its program, while failing to meet much smaller targets for fin and humpback whales. Japan has said it will abide by the decision, but it does not necessarily mean a permananet end to whaling.
The United Nation’s court ordered a halt to the issuing of whaling permits until the program has been revamped. The ICJ, by 12 votes to four, said Japan had not acted in compliance with its obligations under the international whaling convention.
Four years ago former environment minister Peter Garrett helped launch legal action against Japan in the International Court of Justice to try and put a stop to its controversial Antarctic whaling program. It was the first time any country had used an international court to try to stop whaling. Mr Garrett said he felt vindicated by the decision Labor made in 2010 to pursue the case against so-called “scientific whaling’’ in The Hague.
“I’m absolutely over the moon, for all those people who wanted to see the charade of scientific whaling cease once and for all,’’ the former Midnight Oil singer told ABC Radio this evening. He wasn’t the only one celebrating the outcome, with many taking to Twitter to share the news and pay tribute to the anti-whaling activist group Sea Shepherd.
Sea Shepherd Australia chairman and former Australian Greens leader Bob Brown congratulated the captain of the fleet that made its name in daring clashes with Japanese whalers in Antarctica.
“A whale of a win! Paul Watson is a global hero and Australians can all feel proud. Sea Shepherd Australia chairman,’’ Mr Brown posted.
Current Greens leader Christine Milne also paid tribute to the “champions” at Sea Shepherd, calling the ICJ verdict “justice at last”.
Australia had asked the court to ban Japan’s annual hunt on the basis it was not “for purposes of scientific research’’ as allowed under Article 8 of the 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling.
Canberra argued Tokyo was cloaking a commercial whaling operation “in the labcoat of science’’ despite agreeing to a 1980s ban on harpooning. Japan, however, countered during a three-week hearing in mid-2013 that the ICJ didn’t have the authority to decide what was, or wasn’t, science. It insisted lethal research was both lawful and necessary.
But in UN court last dismissed Tokyo’s argument. The court didn’t accept Australia’s argument that “scientific research’’ needed to have defined and achievable objectives, use appropriate methods, be properly peer reviewed, and avoid adverse events on the stocks being studied. Instead it focused on whether Tokyo’s program was “for purposes of’’ scientific research, however that was defined. Judge Tomka said the key was whether “the elements of the program’s design and implementation are reasonable in relation to its stated scientific objectives’’.
Killing whales could be science and wasn’t “unreasonable per se’’, Judge Tomka said. Furthermore, the fact whale meat was sold afterwards to fund future hunts did not, on its own, mean the program was illegal. But the court found there could be a greater reliance on non-lethal methods.
The court president said Tokyo should have analysed the feasibility of non-lethal methods when setting the quota size for taking whales. “There is no evidence that Japan has examined whether it would be feasible to combine a smaller lethal take, in particular of minke whales, and an increase in non-lethal sampling as a means to achieve ... research objectives,’’ he said. Tokyo was criticised for doubling its target to 850 minke whales each year after 2005 without first assessing the research effectiveness of its earlier program, which had a much smaller sample size. Japan hunts around a thousand mostly minke whales annually in the icy waters of the Southern Ocean.
Australia and environmental groups say the hunt serves no scientific purpose and is just a way for Japan to get around the moratorium on commercial whaling imposed by the International Whaling Commission in 1986. Although the popularity of whale meat is declining in Japan, it is considered a delicacy by some, and meat from the hunt is sold commercially.
Japan has said it will abide by the ruling of the court, known as the World Court, which is the United Nations’ court for disputes between countries. At the start of last night’s judgment hearing, Judge Tomka said that “research objectives alone must be sufficient to justify the program’’. Australia wins whaling case against Japan in The Hague
STAFF REPORTERS AND WIRES NEWS CORP AUSTRALIA MARCH 31, 2014 7:10PM
Cornish fisheries MP visits the Seafood Village in Grimsby.
Monday morning's muted morning skies
High water during one of the biggest tides for the year, but with little wind the bad flooding Newlyn has experienced in recent months it passes without incident...
though the old lugger, Children's Friend has succumbed yet again to an ingress of water...
while others like the inshore boat My Lass take advantage of the high tide to moor the boat where she can dry out and get some work done below the waterline more easily...
the grey boxes are just some of the 225 landed by the Ajax from a two day trip, the red boxes from the inshore trawler Imogen III...
New Harmony, one of the inshore boats responsible for landing the best quality fish on the market...
a cracking example of a bull huss...
eyes down for the bidders...
cracking hake from the Govenek of Ladram...
early mornings are not so light now the clacks have gone forwards...
and this morning it was fifty shades of blue as the sun tried to break through the heavy overcast sky...
time to top up with fuel for the visiting Brixham beamer, Carhelmar...
ready and loaded and bound for the Scillies...
equipped for all eventualities, the Dutch beam trawler is also rigged with twin rig trawls on her stern...
Saturday 29 March 2014
Saturday action
Three of the biggest netters in the port lay nose to tail...
as work on the Resurgam's winch get underway...
with a few instructions from the shore...
there's still a few jobs to be done on the beam trawl...
looks like the new ice works is taking shape...
yet more damaged pots come ashore...
let's hope it isn't all down to volunteers to put Newlyn back together again...
but at the moment the path by the Green is still closed to the public...
there was plenty of flow here a few wells ago...
plenty of working deck area in the new Imogen III...
visiting Dutch beam trawler, Z402 Nooitgedacht...
shows off her 3m beam trawls and tidy working deck...
and like all boats working a long way from home carries plenty of spare gear like trawls, stocking and cod ends...
all hands to the winch...
the steel works...
two days fishing from the Ajax testimony to just how much fish id out there at the moment...
as the flashing blade of the Ajax's mate, Tom Hicks makes short work of filleting some pollack...
up come more fish...
down goes the hands...
as the skipper takes time to Tweet the latest landing info from the Ajax...
strike a pose, nice one Matt...
before taking more damaged nets ashore for mending...
happy to be home, "here's looking at you babe"...
another bag of damaged nets goes ashore...
piles of beach pebbles put to good use.
Friday 28 March 2014
#FishyFriday
Big boxes for big fish...
somehow this mermaid's purse (the egg of a shark) made it ashore...
a box of blues...
two golden opportunities...
Sparkling Line landing in Newlyn...
it's a mystery...
the Anthony Stevenson in better times...
Schools to be told to buy local British products, minister says
Local Cornish MP for Camborne George Eustice tells MPs that schools will from September be told to buy local, in season British products for children's meals.
Let's hope he means fish as well!
Schools could be made to buy local produce and in season British fruit and vegetables under plans being considered by ministers.
George Eustice, the farming minister, said that the Department for Education is working on measures to ensure that schools across the country use British produce in their meals.
Mr Eustice told MPs on the environment, food and rural affairs committee that from September, schools will be told by the Government that they should be buying local produce.
He said that Michael Gove’s education department is working on a “school food plan” that will “encourage” the use of fresh, British products in children’s meals.
Britain imports billions of pounds of food every year – nearly a quarter of all food consumed every year – and ministers are keen to encourage more local suppliers.
 |
| No doubt Andrew George (seen here buying fresh fish at Newlyn Fish Festival), local MP for Penzance, St Ives and Newlyn will be the first to see that George Osborne's words are turned into deeds! |
Let's hope he means fish as well!
Schools could be made to buy local produce and in season British fruit and vegetables under plans being considered by ministers.
George Eustice, the farming minister, said that the Department for Education is working on measures to ensure that schools across the country use British produce in their meals.
Mr Eustice told MPs on the environment, food and rural affairs committee that from September, schools will be told by the Government that they should be buying local produce.
He said that Michael Gove’s education department is working on a “school food plan” that will “encourage” the use of fresh, British products in children’s meals.
Britain imports billions of pounds of food every year – nearly a quarter of all food consumed every year – and ministers are keen to encourage more local suppliers.
Thursday 27 March 2014
In the Hospital? Thank Healthcare Without Harm for Your Local Seafood
This might be from the other side of the pond but surely these are common issues within health care and sourcing healthy food for those under the care of the NHS?
First, what is Health Care Without Harm? "Together with our partners around the world, Health Care Without Harm shares a vision of a health care sector that does no harm, and instead promotes the health of people and the environment. The mission of Health Care Without Harm is to transform the health care sector worldwide, without compromising patient safety or care, so that it is ecologically sustainable and no longer a source of harm to public health and the environment."
Summer 2013 Health Alliance Seafood Throwdown
What's fish got to do with it? Fish connects us to ecosystems and communities:
At HCWH, the idea of environmental nutrition focuses on the collective responsibility of supporting community and ecosystem health by paying attention to how food is raised, harvested, processed, transported and purchased. This perspective fosters a healthy, sustainable food system by focusing on strengthening communities, supporting social justice and conserving natural resources through sustainable practices. Buying locally caught fish is an important way to support environmental nutrition. Many New England towns are built around the fishing industry; maintaining the strength of this industry is crucial to preserve fishing communities and enable local fishermen to continue a generations-long tradition. Why are hospitals buying local seafood?
Locally caught fish promotes patient health and community health:
Serving local fish will improve the health of the community from which the fish is harvested. Like fishing communities, hospitals are important parts of the social and environmental health of their communities. By buying fish from local fisherman, hospitals can showcase underutilized species and balance the demand on the ecosystem. This may inspire others to buy and eat different species, which will enable local fishermen to fish a variety of species and reduce overfishing of certain popular fish. Patients will also benefit from added freshness and the higher levels of many micronutrients in wild seafood.
How is Health Care Without Harm helping hospitals source local food?
Education, outreach and technical assistance to help and engage healthcare and the public:
This post comes to us from Brittany Peats, Health Care Without Harm intern.
First, what is Health Care Without Harm? "Together with our partners around the world, Health Care Without Harm shares a vision of a health care sector that does no harm, and instead promotes the health of people and the environment. The mission of Health Care Without Harm is to transform the health care sector worldwide, without compromising patient safety or care, so that it is ecologically sustainable and no longer a source of harm to public health and the environment."
Summer 2013 Health Alliance Seafood Throwdown
What's fish got to do with it? Fish connects us to ecosystems and communities:
At HCWH, the idea of environmental nutrition focuses on the collective responsibility of supporting community and ecosystem health by paying attention to how food is raised, harvested, processed, transported and purchased. This perspective fosters a healthy, sustainable food system by focusing on strengthening communities, supporting social justice and conserving natural resources through sustainable practices. Buying locally caught fish is an important way to support environmental nutrition. Many New England towns are built around the fishing industry; maintaining the strength of this industry is crucial to preserve fishing communities and enable local fishermen to continue a generations-long tradition. Why are hospitals buying local seafood?
Locally caught fish promotes patient health and community health:
Serving local fish will improve the health of the community from which the fish is harvested. Like fishing communities, hospitals are important parts of the social and environmental health of their communities. By buying fish from local fisherman, hospitals can showcase underutilized species and balance the demand on the ecosystem. This may inspire others to buy and eat different species, which will enable local fishermen to fish a variety of species and reduce overfishing of certain popular fish. Patients will also benefit from added freshness and the higher levels of many micronutrients in wild seafood.
How is Health Care Without Harm helping hospitals source local food?
Education, outreach and technical assistance to help and engage healthcare and the public:
- Our Balanced Menus Program will assist health care institutions in sourcing sustainable sources of protein, including underappreciated species of seafood from the local fishing communities.
- To support a pathway to internal hospital purchasing, HCWH worked with the seafood aggregator Red’s Best to source through Sysco and Sodexo accounts. Red’s Best operates out of Boston to aggregate the seafood catch of small and medium-sized day boat fishermen and sell their catch to local wholesalers. As a result of this new partnership, in 2013, Red’s Best sold 5,410 pounds of fish to 16 healthcare facilities in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
- We collaborated with NAMA on Seafood Throwdowns to engage with the healthcare community. These friendly competitions between pairs of hospital chefs charged with preparing the best hospital dish using a whole local seafood species and seasonal farmers market ingredients introduce hospital staff, visitors, and patients to underutilized seafood and increase demand for these varieties through hospital purchasing.
- The Celebrate the Fruits of our Ocean campaign with NAMA and the Boston Collaborative for Food and Fitness raised awareness about the challenges of the fishing community and new species of seafood to Boston’s farmers markets. These communities now have a direct source of fresh, culturally appropriate and environmentally friendly seafood.
This post comes to us from Brittany Peats, Health Care Without Harm intern.
Wednesday 26 March 2014
How the discards ban could spell the end of family owned fishing vessels
The following article by Bertie Armstrong, chief executive, Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, was published in The Buchan’s Observer’s annual Fishing Review for 2014. In it, he warns that if the forthcoming discards ban is implemented badly, it could spell the demise of traditional family owned fishing vessels.
There is no business quite like fishing, and as each year passes, the challenges facing our crucial sector seem to gather pace with frightening speed.
The next few years are likely to be particularly fraught, most notably because of the introduction of the discards ban, or ‘land-all obligation’. For our mackerel and herring fishermen it will come into force on 1 January 2015, and for most other fishermen it will be gradually phased in over the following few years, with all species covered by 1 January 2019. Those representing our interests supported and signed up for this – and now we have to face the consequences.
The challenges of making the discards ban a reality in the timescale will vary by fishery. A few, like the creel sector and some specific areas in the prawn fisheries already have low discards and will encounter less difficulty. The real struggle will be in the mixed fisheries pursued by the whitefish fleet and most of the North Sea prawn fleet. Here, the question of what to do with “choke species” – the point where an individual vessel runs out of its lowest quota in the mix and has to stop fishing altogether – is no closer to an answer than it was when first posed six or seven years ago.
We have several mitigating factors – some progress on selectivity, the prospect of quota uplift, various flexibilities in the new Common Fisheries Policy regulation, but we still have no clear vision about how the ban can be implemented without radical changes in the worst-affected fleets. If we do nothing, the default radical change will be very significant consolidation of those fleets, moving away from the present Scottish model of family and small consortium ownership of vessels with a strong local attachment. Instead, there will be a much smaller number of much bigger vessels, each coping more easily with the discard ban given the flexibility of a proportionally greater access to quota and under a different ownership model. It may be that a degree of consolidation is simply unavoidable, but now is the time when the choices facing the industry must be urgently addressed to make sure that we drive those choices rather than the other way round.
A recent tripartite agreement between the EU, Norway and the Faroese brought at least a partial agreement on the long-standing mackerel dispute and this in turn finally brought around an agreement between the EU and Norway on catching opportunities in the North Sea, including a 5% increase in the cod quota.
Many of the quota allocations just agreed for the North Sea are in line with long-term management plans. We had hoped that there would have been a bigger increase in the North Sea cod quota, but at least the proposed cut has been successfully fended-off. A cut in the cod quota at this stage would have made a mockery of the European Commission’s commitment to end discarding as it would only have led to fishermen dumping good quality marketable fish overboard, given the abundance of the stock. The science shows that a 5% increase in the cod quota will lead to a significant increase in the stock over the coming year.
The recovery of North Sea cod is a remarkable success story but there needs to be a sensible long-term approach to the management of the stock that recognises that biomass is increasing, fishing pressure is falling and that the stock is being harvested sustainably.
But against this complicated and difficult background, there is also much to be encouraged by. Take the public perception of fishing as an example. In recent years it has come under unprecedented attack by ill-informed journalists and armchair environmental experts. We’ve all seen the headlines about their only being ‘100 adult cod left in the North Sea’, when the actual figure was over 20 million. And then there was ‘Hugh’s Fish Fight’ on Channel 4, which again vilified fishermen.
Of course the truth is very different, and indignant fishermen rose up against these inaccuracies, and guys like Peter Bruce of the Budding Rose and many others Tweeted and Facebooked their way to putting the record straight. The SFF also launched our own website, www.fishingforthetruth.co.uk, which contains a whole host of information on fisheries and how our fishermen are working towards a sustainable future. And all these actions are working, with the most recent ‘Hugh’s Fish Fight’ programme providing a much more balanced picture, recognising the hard work of our fishermen.
The truth is that the majority of our fish stocks are recovering, thanks in large part to the pioneering efforts of our fishermen to develop selective gear, observing closed areas to fishing to protect spawning and juvenile fish, along with many other measures. This is all positive news, but there also needs to be a structure put in place that ensures there is a future for fishing, and which encourages youngsters to enter our great industry.
For that to be achieved, there needs to be much greater recognition from the EU and our national governments of the complexities of fishing and the need to develop much more sensible and coherent fisheries management measures that actually work in practice, rather than just look good on paper. And how do you do that? Well, there is only one way – work and consult closely with the people who understand fishing the best – the fishermen themselves.
There is no business quite like fishing, and as each year passes, the challenges facing our crucial sector seem to gather pace with frightening speed.
The next few years are likely to be particularly fraught, most notably because of the introduction of the discards ban, or ‘land-all obligation’. For our mackerel and herring fishermen it will come into force on 1 January 2015, and for most other fishermen it will be gradually phased in over the following few years, with all species covered by 1 January 2019. Those representing our interests supported and signed up for this – and now we have to face the consequences.
The challenges of making the discards ban a reality in the timescale will vary by fishery. A few, like the creel sector and some specific areas in the prawn fisheries already have low discards and will encounter less difficulty. The real struggle will be in the mixed fisheries pursued by the whitefish fleet and most of the North Sea prawn fleet. Here, the question of what to do with “choke species” – the point where an individual vessel runs out of its lowest quota in the mix and has to stop fishing altogether – is no closer to an answer than it was when first posed six or seven years ago.
We have several mitigating factors – some progress on selectivity, the prospect of quota uplift, various flexibilities in the new Common Fisheries Policy regulation, but we still have no clear vision about how the ban can be implemented without radical changes in the worst-affected fleets. If we do nothing, the default radical change will be very significant consolidation of those fleets, moving away from the present Scottish model of family and small consortium ownership of vessels with a strong local attachment. Instead, there will be a much smaller number of much bigger vessels, each coping more easily with the discard ban given the flexibility of a proportionally greater access to quota and under a different ownership model. It may be that a degree of consolidation is simply unavoidable, but now is the time when the choices facing the industry must be urgently addressed to make sure that we drive those choices rather than the other way round.
A recent tripartite agreement between the EU, Norway and the Faroese brought at least a partial agreement on the long-standing mackerel dispute and this in turn finally brought around an agreement between the EU and Norway on catching opportunities in the North Sea, including a 5% increase in the cod quota.
Many of the quota allocations just agreed for the North Sea are in line with long-term management plans. We had hoped that there would have been a bigger increase in the North Sea cod quota, but at least the proposed cut has been successfully fended-off. A cut in the cod quota at this stage would have made a mockery of the European Commission’s commitment to end discarding as it would only have led to fishermen dumping good quality marketable fish overboard, given the abundance of the stock. The science shows that a 5% increase in the cod quota will lead to a significant increase in the stock over the coming year.
The recovery of North Sea cod is a remarkable success story but there needs to be a sensible long-term approach to the management of the stock that recognises that biomass is increasing, fishing pressure is falling and that the stock is being harvested sustainably.
But against this complicated and difficult background, there is also much to be encouraged by. Take the public perception of fishing as an example. In recent years it has come under unprecedented attack by ill-informed journalists and armchair environmental experts. We’ve all seen the headlines about their only being ‘100 adult cod left in the North Sea’, when the actual figure was over 20 million. And then there was ‘Hugh’s Fish Fight’ on Channel 4, which again vilified fishermen.
Of course the truth is very different, and indignant fishermen rose up against these inaccuracies, and guys like Peter Bruce of the Budding Rose and many others Tweeted and Facebooked their way to putting the record straight. The SFF also launched our own website, www.fishingforthetruth.co.uk, which contains a whole host of information on fisheries and how our fishermen are working towards a sustainable future. And all these actions are working, with the most recent ‘Hugh’s Fish Fight’ programme providing a much more balanced picture, recognising the hard work of our fishermen.
The truth is that the majority of our fish stocks are recovering, thanks in large part to the pioneering efforts of our fishermen to develop selective gear, observing closed areas to fishing to protect spawning and juvenile fish, along with many other measures. This is all positive news, but there also needs to be a structure put in place that ensures there is a future for fishing, and which encourages youngsters to enter our great industry.
For that to be achieved, there needs to be much greater recognition from the EU and our national governments of the complexities of fishing and the need to develop much more sensible and coherent fisheries management measures that actually work in practice, rather than just look good on paper. And how do you do that? Well, there is only one way – work and consult closely with the people who understand fishing the best – the fishermen themselves.
Spring is still coiled ready for action it seems as the sun hides away in Mount's Bay
The netting fleet have a few days of the neap tide left before one of the biggest tides of the year hits the coast...
less than sunny skies make for a foreboding look as the boats head out at first light...
with boats like the Ajax facing a long steam to the grounds...
on the market the fish are fast moving after each sale...
putting pressure on the collection of data for Cefas to be completed before the auction reaches the boat in question...
not so heavy megrim fishing at the moment...
but the lemons are best at this time of year with them at their meatiest in the body...
a set of open gills display the gill filaments fully red with the blood near the surface which allows for easy transfer of oxygen from the water...
beamer bass by the box...
and best tub gurnards all surely head for a top restaurant...
keep an eye on the auction in progress…
just a couple of trips from the net fleet including best Cornish hake...
and a big selection of roes...
early morning workout for some...
there is still good fishing to be had at the end of the cuttle season...
the harbour staff will be pleased when its over so the buildings can become sepia ink free...
tons of cuttles lined up and ready to go...
looks like the old lugger Children's Friend may get to be saved yet...
after this morning the tide takes a big jump each day.
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