Shaun, along with a handful of other young bloods, learned his craft mackereling and dogging in his formative days aboard the port's record breaking Boy Gary under the awesome tutelage of cricketing skipper John 'Janner' Thomas. In the early 80s, dogfish following the huge shoals of mackerel provided the Boy Gary and a handful of other small netters with huge trips that led to her grossing just short of £40,000 for a trip smashing the port record. As one of a new breed of young skippers who saw a future in fishing with monofilament nets he then moved on to co-own the Bonny Mary with current St Piran skipper Shane Liddicoat, before the two went their own ways with Shaun becoming skipper and owner of the longliner turned netter Bonny Mary (ex-KimBill) before bringing the trawler/netter Crimond II down from North of the border and finally moving on to the current, Nova Spero.
Not one to keep his emotions or thoughts to himself, Shaun is passionate about catching fish, as can be seen from this picture of him with the finest quality Cornish Tuna, now marketed by supermarket Morrison's as Coruna tuna.
Filmed after a 10 day tuna trip, here's a short video of the Nova Spero landing at Newlyn with Shaun enthusing over the quality of his fish - beware, the soundtrack contains one or two old Cornish fishing terms!
