While the coasts of Ireland, the North of England and Scotland might support huge shoals of herring, ....
Newlyn sees very few of the 15,600 tons of these ultra-tasty fish during the course of a year - the Cornwall Good Seafood Guide tells the full story - "Herring is rarely targeted by Cornish boats. The latest scientific data (June 2020) shows that herring stocks in the Celtic sea are currently very low and are being over fished (though this is being carried out by boats from outside Cornwall). Herring landed to Cornwall are caught by gill netters, drift netters and by ring netting, mainly from the south coast. Fishing methods used have no or little impact on the seabed and are currently managed at an appropriate level. In the Celtic sea the majority of the catch is made by the Irish fishing fleet who are operating under a long term management plan since 2011 and a rebuilding plan has been in place since 2009, however the latest ICES report shows that stocks are very low and this species gets a default rating of 5 due to advice from ICES that there should be a zero catch in 2022. Little is known about stocks in the Western Channel. 11 tonnes of herring were landed to Cornish ports in 2019 (MMO data)"....
and just to add insult to injury, because there is no distinction made between the method or impact of fishing on a particular species handliners get a raw deal and their fish is considered 'unsustainable' simply because the stock overall is considered to be in a poor state - the fact that their catches amount to almost nothing does not seem to figure - the same goes for other bulk species like mackerel as this recent media story highlights...
mainly in nets worked by small singlehanded punts - like sardines, they are not a fish that falls for the fishermen's lure of feathered hooks like mackerel...
though, salted down, like mackerel they make excellent bait for the inshore lobster fishermen...
of course when it comes to eating fish one of the all time great delights are freshly smoked herring - or kippers, not to be confused with a certain local fisherman hailing from Porthleven - this photo of 'Kipper' was taken aboard the longliner KimBill in 1981...
