Monday morning market mayhem!

This mornings dawning sky has a distinctly watery look to it...

though the harbour looking southwards looks benign enough, time will tell...

despite there being only the one beam trawler putting fish on the market this morning the landings board was full with fish from 18 boats..

including the netter, Ygraine...

and the port's pollack handline specialist, Sea Spray...

there were boxes as far as they eye can see...

big fish were very much in evidence including two good shots of ray...

and turbot from netters using different kinds of gear fishing different areas...

giving the buyers plenty to choose from...

many of the local fleet like the Brit are members of the Seafish Responsible Fishing Scheme - currently we are waiting for news of a Responsible Fishing Scheme for ports which will help guarantee the quality of fish and greatly simplify the amount of administration required to do so...

along with the netters several of the visiting fleet of big Scottish trawlers landed over the weekend - hence the ray being winged to ease the task of boxing such big fish...

with the boats fishing west of the Scillys some of its local residents have put in an appearance, like these zulus...

plenty of a fish far more familiar to the kilted Celtic cousins, whiting...

more signs that summer is on the way with an increase in the number of John Dory being put ashore...

other white fish like haddock...

and megrim are more familiar to the local fleet...

while a perennial favourite of the BBQ brigade are red mullet from the ex-French stern trawler, Nicola Anne...

another fish found further west, but a little magic is needed to identify these beauties...

fish inhabiting different locations tend to blend in with the bottom type they live on, hence the difference in colour exhibited by these Dover sole...

down the quay the Joy of Ladram takes on new nets...

chain saws make light work of sawing these big tree trunks...

being used to provide new quay fenders...

detail of the rubbing strip...

kind of dog-like features on some...

the skies over Mount's Bay were busy enough with passing air traffic it seems.

Mid-week market in Newlyn

Tom treated to a stunning morning overlooking Mounts Bay...

as a few of the punts set to work just off the gaps...

the Lady H is getting ready for the summer...

yet more more trawl fish landings from the big Scottish prawners...

unusually, the Shekinah skin their monk tails...

boxes of JDs from the 23m prawner, Replenish...

and a few from local Dory chaser, young Roger Nowell...

the one beam trawler put ashore a good shot of monk, megrim and...

other flats like these plaice...

whole monk from the Replenish...

with a few boxes of these monsters of the deep...

auctioneer Ryan in full swing...

if you can't beat them, join them - the James RH scratched a handful of prawns from her trip...

thornbacks don't come much bigger...

nor do haddock...

gaping cod...

pristine turbot from the Govenek...

and a few hake...

sometimes the topside skin pigment appears on the belly of turbot...

not the happiest hake it seems...

time to get the fish off the market...

one of the top predators in western waters...

heading down the quay to sea...

as the Admiral Glanville heads for the end of the quay...

poser...

not exactly reflecting her former glory...

Sowenaa III packs a huge amount of boat in 26 feet of Buccaneer hull...

the tallship, Bessie Ellen provides classic sailing trips...

blue is the colour, fish is the game, Falfish wagon...

signs of summer, another visiting trawler, Radiance gets ready to take ice...

23 metres of registered length, modern stern trawlers and their big beams pack a huge amount of boat...

into a short length of boat...

checking the stern ropes...

tools of the trade for shelterdecked boats, the only way to get the better of all those deposits left behind by the gulls which chase the boats at sea every time they haul...

Fishing films at Newlyn Filmhouse in aid of the RNLI

Cornish Sardines and the Gillnetters of Newlyn

Two locally made historic amateur films Cornish Gold is a short film shot in 1960 following the pilchard from the sea to processing works.

The Gillnetters of Newlyn shot in 1990 follows PZ 41 The Ocean Spray on a five day, 160 mile fishing trip out of Newlyn. The usual distributors fee will be donated to the RNLI.

Book your tickets online - Newlyn Filmhouse offers excellent food and drinks available in what was Turner's Fish Factory!

The Little Rascal - Chris Tyler.

There's another side to the fishing industry to that of the many families born and bred to that way of life. Plato said, " There are three sorts of men, the living, the dead, and those that go down to the sea" - and a more extreme example of one of those attracted to go down to the sea for the adventure and rewards that fishing offered was a certain Chris Tyler.

At the time this was post the 60s Beatles, early 70s Beach Boys, Pink Floyd were always in the LP charts, Party 4s, Mateus Rosé and handful of illegal substances, the Vietnam War raged , 'discos' were the thing and a generation of teenagers was able to afford holidays far away from home.

Then, fishing provided a means to earn some money for anyone willing to take a chance, learn fast and graft.  As a young man barely out of an Essex technical college where he studied architecture, Chris found himself living in the far west of Cornwall financed partly through trips aboard local fishing boats as and when needed.  Practical, gregarious, willing, fun-loving and always on the look out for something different and new Chris fell in with a similar band of troubadours with one thing in common - surfing - at a time when you could count the number of good UK surfers on one hand.

In the wider world, the quietly and well spoken Chris is best known for creating the Uk's first surf club, Skewjack Surf Centre near Sennen in the early 1970s. Thousands of people all over the world no doubt fondly remember their time at Skewjack as the best ever - such was its reputation - though in the end, being featured on the BBC Holiday programme in '76 was its undoing as pure a Beach Boys, West Coast surf centre! However, for Chris there was much more to follow including recreating Skewjack as a holiday destination for disadvantaged kids and creating Penzance's own unique Chelsea style Arts Club in Chapel Street.

However, Newlyn will remember Chris as a fisherman or more accurately as a trawlerman, especially when he skippered his own boat, Le Petite Raleur (aptly translated as, The Little Rascal). Local surfers at the time like John Adams, Wog Wilson, Mike Cattran, Harvey Hall, Kevin Hanley and many others, some of whom, like Joe Crow, also fished - a heady mix of surfers, fishermen and many more frequented Newlyn's most notorious pub, the Swordfish - helping, in part, to develop its reputation as the pub for the hardest working and hardest partying punters in the west.

Today, in an age driven by due regard for Health & Safety and a myriad of legislative devices, fishing is not the unfettered bastion of the free spirited adventurer that it used to be - it is still one of the most rewarding and demanding of ways to make a living but not without the unfettered freedom that pervaded when Le Petite Raleur and her motley crew passed through the gaps - the world has moved on.

Chris died back in November last year with a passing touch of irony on Guy Fawkes day aged 77. Tomorrow, there is a memorial service at 1pm in Paul Church followed by a chance to toast the life of someone who was truly instrumental in giving the far west of Cornwall its own unique blend of creative, hard but fun-loving, work culture.  The Coastguard in Mousehole will play host to an after service session from 2.30pm.

Fishermen living in a police state - makes the Stazi and Big Brother look benign!

Brackan's Spirited Ladyy in Newlyn.

Here's an example of what has happened to the fishing industry and how closely monitored its operations have become - now, almost the entire fleet are policed remotely using a VMS (vessel Monitoring System) that tracks their every move. 

Fishermen have to pay for the privilege of being watched 24/7 and maintain the equipment directly from what comes out  out of the cod-end - which they are happy to do - but, if for any reason the system fails, they are immediately contacted by the MMO who insist that they report their position manually every 4 hours and return to port immediately to fix the problem - when they will be detained until they have done so!...

This is exactly what happened to the Spirited Lady III yesterday - 


"That's the boat tied up and not aloud to go to return to sea until our VMS is working properly. At the cost of owner, skipper and crew. Hopefully electrical engineer down in the morning to repair unit and we only lose 24 hours fishing. How many other boats have had this problem? And how much time lost?"😡😡😡😡


After posting on social media the skipper was inundated with responses of even more draconian treatment to other skippers in similar positions:

"Up in court for it next month over 18mth ago to. Boats 11.98m but there's is the only rule in the whole of shipping vms is overall so they got us. Total farce the whole lot there more concerned if we are fishing in one of there closed boxes rather than our position if we were lost says it all."

"We were the very same,our VMS stopped working and the only way we were allowed to return back ta sea was when the VMS engineer said he had no parts to repair and we needed a new unit"

"We had ta email every 4 hrs or lat en long
its a complete heap of rubbish that and all the mmo and marine scotland are doing is gold plating idiotic rules on vms"

"We are paying for the signal and repairs,we paying for a rope to hang ourselves,fishery office,immigration,use it to our disadvantage when we gonna learn"

"I had the same the other day- it's ok as long as you stop at sea- as soon as you come in you're buggered- I have a spare unit on the boat if you get stuck- ours was the aerial connection underneath the unit so just had to replace the aerial wire-"

"I had a conversation with a man from AST, as I had no signal in Fraserburgh harbour. He told me not to worry, as it's not 100% and there's a lot of areas you don't get a signal on VMS. I was amazed he said this, and even more amazed the fisheries are using something that's not 100% reliable. The whole things a joke"

"Up in court for it next month over 18mth ago to. Boats 11.98m but there's is the only rule in the whole of shipping VMS is overall so they got us. Total farce the whole lot there more concerned if we are fishing in one of there closed boxes rather than our position if we were lost says it all."

"Makes you wonder what would happen if it was over the weekend."

Remember, many of these boats are small inshore vessels, often skipper-owned with one or two crew - like the Spirited Lady III - they are not huge ocean-going factory ships or tuna purse seiners landing catches worth hundreds of thousands of £s!