Trips from two boats made up the bulk of fish for Monday's market with a handful of herring...
and mackerel...
and mullet from the Phoenix thrown in for good measure...
the netter Ocean Pride stuck out some pretty harsh weather...
to bring the buyers the only MSC Certified hake that will see the market this week...
sometimes a simple hug is all that is needed...
as auctioneer Ian tries to get the best possible price for...
these head-on monk landed by the Spanish Flag of Convenience netter Monte Mazantu - there's a meeting later this week with national fishermen's organisations and the Defra where fishermen's representatives will be pushing hard to see that flag of convenience vessels are forced to land at least 70% of their annual catch to UK markets - at present a tiny fraction of the many millions of pounds of fish caught by these boats is landed onto lorries and shipped back to Spain, Belgium or Holland and the fish sold there giving no direct financial benefit to the UK whatsoever - other than the rather curious practice of counting all the existing landings towards our GDP...
unlike most Cornish boats which cut the heads off monk and often discard them...
Spanish boats make a small incision in the belly of the monk and simply gut them to maximise their return on the catch...
big plaice featured in the beam trawler Cornishman's catch...
along with a few big butt...
bidding was brisk on the monk...
as the porters quickly hauled their respective buyer's purchases from the auction floor...
with the entire fleet tied up for weather...
buyers are left wondering if they will see any more fish on the market before the week is out...
Newlyn is never short of the unusual...
time for the artic to head back to base...
with no sign of a let up in the weather which has seen some severe winds hit the UK for five days now...
many of the local netting fleet fished through 50 knots of wind...
to put ashore their trips of MSC Certified hake...
while any boats fishing out at Rockall during the last few days will have experienced the sobering view of looking up to the tops of the waves breaking astern of them - and that's from the wheelhouse some 20 feet above sea level - a reminder, as if needed, of the price of fish. Video courtesy of Shaun McClenaghan aboard the Northern Celt from earlier this year.
