More like summer this morning!

Flat calm, no wind, blue sky and hardly a boat left in the port........

apart from the visiting Brixham sailing fishing boat, a beam trawler, the Providence laying outside the Filadelfia back with probs.......

good night's work for the sardine boys again......

Big Daddy and a Joey mackerel, not many of those to the kilo.......

first signs of this season's squid putting in an apprearance......

good sized trubot for the AA.........

the reddest of red mullet.

Hake for supper.

Looks like good fishing with the Ajax according to the the tweets from skipper Alan, so while the hake netters are rolling around away west of the Scillies, it seems only fair in the warmth, comfort and stability of home to indulge in some Newlyn hake for the evening repast. In this case a simple recipe, a handful of black olives mashed spread on the flesh side of a hake fillet, shallow fried and turned for the last few minutes to finish off. Veg of choice to accompany the fish, in this case puy lentils with celery, leek and a sliced chilli to liven things up - and a baked potato.

Social Networking - a far cry from link calls and VHF!

In business terms they would be known as 'early adopters' - people who take up with a new product or service when it first appears on the market.  Fishing, despite being a a traditional industry, has plenty of early adopters when it comes to new products or services that improve fishing performance. So, with full access to the internet restricted to bigger boats that can afford the luxury of sat comms it's good to see a few of the smaller vessels make use of new technology, like social networking sites through using Inmarsat C and the mobile phone networks. Of course, fishermen for many years have made use of their VHF radios and 'big sets' at sea to create their own kind of fishermen's social network between vessels from different ports and even countries!

Budding Rose taken from her pair-seine partner Lapwing - the boats fish from Peterhead in Scotland.

Today, a handful of smaller boats have their own blogs, Newlyn's Crystal Sea II and Peterhead's Budding Rose are two examples. The Scottish boat is part of a pair-seine team, her partner-in-crime being the Lapwing. The boats work in the North Sea, off the Shetlands and over in the Norwegian sector on the Bergen Bank in the summer months. Sometimes, they target hake like the Newlyn netting fleet and there are photos of good hauls of hake on the blog.

More recently a few boats have begun to experiment with Twitter to chronicle their daily fishing activity. Yesterday, with Alan the Ajax's skipper now signed up to Twitter, we learnt that while fishing over 100 miles west of Newlyn deep off the coast of Ireland she had been towed by a big Spanish trawler - then late last night we heard the catch results when half way through hauling her gear on the first day - with 100stone (approx. 650Kg) of 2-4Kg hake - good fishing - but with the forecast giving SW 5-7, a very uncomfortable night in store!

Hopefully, more boats will be encouraged to get to grips with the technology and find the time to bring their fishing stories to a computer, tablet or smart phone screen near you!

Ajax encounters that same old problem with a Spanish trawler.

Neuvo Ria Aldan courtesy of TrawlerPhotos.co.uk

fishing terms: towed (v) when a trawler tows its trawl across nets, pots or lines fixed to the bottom


The latest tweet (see box on the right side of the blog) from Alan, skipper of the netter Ajax has identified the big 337 tonne Spanish trawler Neuvo Ria Aldan after she towed her trawl through the nets. If a trawler tows across a tier of nest sometimes the damage is restricted to a small section when the net might be dragged for a short distance or even cut through. In which case the netter has to steam to the other end of the tier and start hauling again untill the break is reached. If, however the trawler tows in the same direction as the gear is laying a whole set of nets can be lost. Let's hope that the Ajax can get in contact with the boat to pass over her readings for the rest of the gear.

Monday.

A proper autumnal start to the week, with the strong weekend winds having dropped away, the ETV Anglian Princess sits quietly at anchor in the Bay........

one of a couple of boats to land this morning, big cod from the beamer James RH.........

just checking one of the inshore trawler Imogen's boxes of fish.......

half a dozen boxes of best bass should make a premium price with much of the country being starved of quality inshore fish over the last few days......

the ring netters were kept busy on the Cornish Sardines last night, well over twenty tubs in this stack alone......

the bilge pump is kept busy on one of the harbour's relics, fit only as the subject for artistic endeavour these days..........

an end of season yacht checks out the bottom for a safe anchorage.......

view from the James RH across the harbour to the just arrived Cornishman........

scouting for birds.......

there's a good chance one of these will get a good soaking in a minute......

the grass may still be green but the leaves give the game a way, Autumn is here.

Feeding time!

Blue Reef Aquarium Newquay at 4pm when the fish in the main aquarium are fed - watch yer toes!

Mounts Bay from the train.

The clouds give it away.