Things aren't always what they seem!

The discards story was never going to be an easy one to put across to a fisheries administrators and green organisations - few of whom have any first hand seagoing fishing boat experience to know exactly what happens when fish are hauled aboard - much less Jo Public!

The Real Fish FightHugh's Fish Fight

Many fishermen have recently been working with scientists studying the rates of survival of discarded fish with some so far interesting results. Most flatfish, Plaice, Sole, Skates and Rays along with others survive at 40% to 100% 

So if Hughs Fish Fight is here to blindly stop discards then it very much looks like a discard ban would actually increase massively the mortality without benefit for the fish stocks of fishermen. Its very sad that so many of the public have been duped by Hugh and his cronies.

Cefas Endeavour - January 2013 MCZ Surveys

Surveys of recommended Marine Conservation Zones (rMCZs) in the 'Finding Sanctuary' regional project area in collaboration with Natural England - the reulst fo which should be of particular concern for those who fish in these areas.

Here is the third post from the current Cefas Endeavour survey - poor weather has seen her shirt from a transit off the Scillies to more comfortable and workable waters off Padstow.

The Residents of the Rocky Reef

Posted by Sue on 21 January 2013

On completion of the multibeam survey we were able to look at the processed bathymetry and backscatter data to help us select the position of our drop camera survey stations (shown below).

 

The drop camera is an extremely reliable too for surveying these upstanding rocky reefs where a towed camera (e.g., camera sledge) would most certainly be damaged.  The drop camera is hovered at a consistent height above the reef to allow video of the seabed along the transect to be obtained along with still images of the habitats and their associated fauna.

So, as promised here are some images of a few of the residents of the rocky reef that we captured during our survey.

Top Left: Sea Fan (Eunicella verrucosa), Top Right and Middle Left: Jewel Anemone (Corynactis viridis), Middle Right: Seven-Armed Starfish (Luidia ciliaris), Bottom Left: Spiny Starfish (Marthasterias glacialis), Bottom Right: Ross Coral (Pentapora foliacea).

As perhaps may be expected for this time of year, the weather has taken a turn for the worse so we have decided to move onto our next survey area on the North Coast of Cornwall where (hopefully) we should be able to begin survey (weather permitting).....

Head for the Cefas Endeavour blog here............

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Text on this page is intended to inform and is not a statement or opinion of Cefas, Defra, Government, partner organisations or funding bodies.

MMO and Mcs redeem mackerel madness!

MCS UK has confirmed #mackerel advice does not apply to south west handline mackerel, one of England's most #sustainable fishing methods!

MCSUK ‏@mcsuk

@The_MMO Handline is certainly most sustainable and least damaging option. See our listings for more detail:http://bit.ly/SuMVND 

Just when the TV and media went into a spin over the downgrading of mackerel from being OK to eat on a regular basis to seldom comes a swift response from the #MMO and Msc - South West handline mackerel can be consumed as and when! Vicory for #common-sense and the guys who fish by hand!

Thursday is hake day



Head of hake keeping an eye on the buyers this morning.

Buyers crow round a 100 box landing of hake from the netter, Ajax.  Fishing just west of the 10º line the crew of the boat had to contend with a heavy ground swell for most of the week. On on of the days the weather went from flat calm to severe winds causing skipper Alan to dhan off the gear and dodge for a few hours!.....

while these cracking pollack came from the inshore boat Girl Pamela...

signs of spring as the Ajax lands a box of roes from the big white fish like co, pollack and coley...

buyers gather round a weeks worth of hake fishing for one netter ...

cracking quality haddock...

and the usual  prime monk tails from the Cadgwith boys...

there's always a few big squid towards the end of the winter season for squid, these are the length of the fish box...

when the hake are this good Newlyn Fish can't say no...

a box of 'stickers'...

these guys soon found their way to Chelsea...

time to empty the mornings buying spree...

but not before the inshore auction finishes - Anthony looks horrified at what he's just paid for those monk...

keeping an eye on things...

pretty much a flat calm this morning before the sun puts its nose above the horizon...

down on the Ajax its time a few nets were taken off...

while the e-Log is checked...

along the prom there's light on the table...

and the beginnings of the day in the sky over the Bay.

Sainsbury’s helps the nation 'Switch the Fish'

Cornish Sardines are being given away free in Sainsburys!

On Friday 25th January 2013, Sainsbury’s is set to give away seven tonnes of lesser known British fish (lemon sole, mussels, Cornish sardines, coley fillets and loch trout fillets) to encourage customers to expand their food repertoire and eat alternative species. ‘Switch the Fish Day’ is part of the retailer’s continued commitment to sustainable fish.

When a customer asks for one of the Big Five species (cod, haddock, tuna, salmon and prawns) at the fish counter on ‘Switch the Fish Day’ they can try a lesser known alternative for free*. The launch builds on the success of Sainsbury’s first ‘Switch the Fish Day’ in 2011 which saw sales of fish soar by 12% across fish counters on the day. Following the campaign sales of alternatives increased with rainbow trout +42% and coley +11.4%, while 8 tonnes of megrim sold – a specie that 85% of the population had never heard of before, according to Sainsbury’s research.

Cornish sardines on the barbecue - a summer favourite - why not grill some now?

The Switch the Fish campaign launches alongside new research from Sainsbury’s which shows cookbooks aimed at families and children continue to encourage the consumption of the Big Five species. The research, which analysed the top 25 children’s and family cookbooks in the UK, shows that 78% of all fish recipes required one of the Big Five species. Across all fish recipes salmon was the most commonly featured fish (25%), followed by prawns (14%) and tuna (14%). Of the 22% of recipes which contained alternative species, mackerel came out on top, included in 5% of all fish recipes, followed by trout and seabass (2% each). Perhaps most worrying, only three books across the whole sample, contained messages about sustainability and the importance of using lesser known species.

Sainsbury’s hopes that the Switch the Fish campaign will better help educate consumers about making sustainable choices. As part of Sainsbury’s commitment, 18,000 counters colleagues have gone through training at the Sainsbury’s food colleges.

Full story here from J Sainsburys.

Species that Sainsbury’s will be giving away for free as part of the Switch the Fish campaign are: Lemon Sole, Mussels, Coley, Loch Trout and of course.......Cornish sardines: 

Sardines (also known as pilchards) are an oil-rich fish naturally high in Omega-3, and they also provide a variety of vitamins and minerals. Ours come from an iconic fishery in Cornwall that’s been exporting fish since 1555! They’re MSC-certified and available fresh from our fish counters from July to February.

Amongst Heroes: the Artist in Working Cornwall: Hooked by Cornwall’s fishy past

‘A Fish Sale on a Cornish Beach’ by Stanhope A. Forbes, RA (1857 – 1947), oil on canvas, 1885 from the exhibition Amongst Heroes exhibition at Two Temple Place 
Photo: © Bridgeman Art Library

If anyone these days starts talking about Cornwall and the visual arts, the chances are that it will be Alfred Wallis, Tate St Ives and the modernism of Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson that come to mind. But a new exhibition opening on Saturday at Two Temple Place – the fabulous faux-Gothic palace originally built by the American magnate William Waldorf Astor alongside Victoria Embankment – reminds us of an older and unfairly neglected tradition associated with that intermittently bleak and beautiful county. Amongst Heroes: the Artist in Working Cornwall has been curated by the young art historian Roo Gunzi, in partnership with the Royal Cornwall Museum. It brings together paintings from artists’ colonies in Newlyn and St Ives, mostly executed between 1880 and 1920 and several of which have not been seen in public for more than a century.

"they aim to show not tragic victims of poverty and oppression, but the plain facts of honest toil"

What they characteristically depict – in a style influenced by masters of the naturalist Barbizon school such as Millet and Corot – is the daily life of peasants and fisherfolk, recorded with an absence of special pleading. The objectivity is significant, Gunzi emphasises. These aren’t sentimental or ideologically loaded paintings: almost all of them painted en plein air or directly from life, they aim to show not tragic victims of poverty and oppression, but the plain facts of honest toil.

The artists (only two of them native to the area) focused on something both picturesque and primitive – a combination very much to the late Victorian-early Edwardian taste. Around the end of the 19th century, Cornwall remained an undiscovered part of the country, largely untouched by industrialism and not a holiday destination or romanticised by Daphne du Maurier.

London art lovers were fascinated by this unfamiliar landscape. Painters such as Stanhope Forbes found great favour at the Royal Academy with scenic tableaux such as A Fish Sale on a Cornish Beach, while Charles Napier Hemy was admired for his spectacular depiction of the trawling of pilchards, painted on the sea from a neighbouring boat. Henry Scott Tuke’s portraits of grizzled seafarers also have great charm, but these painters were generally more interested in rural and maritime craft than in individuals, and as well as the skills and objects associated with boats, harbours and fishmongery, blacksmiths’ forges and claypit quarrying provided them with rich subject-matter.

The exhibition, which runs until April 14, will complement the pictures with relics such as pressing stones, netting needles, hand barrows and even an oyster dredger. Don’t go expecting to see masterpieces, but this is a rewarding examination of a little-known chapter in the history of British painting.

Story courtesy of the Arts section in the Daily Telegraph.

Marine reserves: oceans grabbing and dispossession of fishing - and the concept of wilderness