Last year's Defra review of their #Shark, #Skate & #Ray Planning Review - where are we now?

Sprat fishing Brixham style

Spend the day with Dave Hurford aboard the Brixham trawler Constant Friend. 

Says Dave Hurford, "The sprat season runs from mid-August to mid-February. Sprats have a life-cycle of six years, so they are in constant abundance on this coastline. The amount we catch varies from day to day, but it can be anything from 10 tonnes to 30 tonnes. Fishing is a very labour-intensive job; there are four on the boat, and they have to haul each tonne on board between them, one at a time. At the moment, By the time they've landed the boat and cleaned everything down, it can be 9pm. The boat works six days a week, weather permitting!"

See a Guardian article on the skipper here:

It's a #FishyFriday in Newlyn as MFV Algrie stows her port side beam trawl after landing.

Finding fish before #FishyFriday!

The St Georges put ashore a trip which included a few big pollack - the kind of fish that like to hang around wrecks...

while the net fish kept buyers happy...

while outside the fish auction the netter Ajax is about to make her last landing in Newlyn as she is being replaced by a new steel netter - which will be steaming down from McDuff next week...

hopefully the team working on Penzance's Promenade will get the huge granite stones in place before any big gales hit the Bay.

Ray and skate off the menu for many.

Skate & Ray ban - ICES Areas VI & VII shaded yellow

The full extent on the ray and skate ban which came into force last Friday is seen here - from the French coast in the South East all the way out to west of Rockall in the North West.  Ray is one of the fish likely to cause real problems for fishermen operating in mixed fisheries as a choke species.  Many skippers are waiting for further news and clarification from the MMO who introduced the end of ray and skate fishing in ICES areas VI and VII - rumour has it that the ban will be in place until the end of the year - which will mean many tons of ray and skate being discarded in these areas as the fish are found all over fishing grounds.

Two ray wings cut into four feed the family!

Rays are a great fish for kids and fussy eaters as the 'bones' are in fact just cartilage and the meat just comes away easily after lightly frying or poaching - check out the classic Breton ray in black butter dish 

Nathan Outlaw's latest book Fish Kitchen has some simple ray and skate dishes to try - if you can get some fresh ray or skate fished from the east coast!

Managing fish stocks - Discarding and the landing obligation

Landing obligation - and ban on discards of catches that it entails - is one of the key elements resulting from the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). The Commission proposal paves way for a speedy implementation of the ban on discards. The PECH Committee will present the draft report on landing obligation at the next committee meeting on 16 October.

The film explains what discards are and describes different ways of improving selectivity, based on two langoustine fisheries, one in the Bay of Biscay (Brittany, France) and the other in Skagerrak (Gotland, Sweden). It also reveals the most important measures proposed by the European Commission to reduce by-catches and discards.

Discarding is the practice of returning unwanted catches to the sea, either dead or alive, either because they are too small, the fisherman has no quota, or because of certain catch composition rules. The new CFP does away with the wasteful practice of discarding through the introduction of a landing obligation. This change in regime serves as a driver for more selectivity, and provides more reliable catch data. 

To allow fishermen to adapt to the change, the landing obligation will be introduced gradually, between 2015 and 2019 for all commercial fisheries (species under TACs, or under minimum sizes) in European waters. Under the landing obligation all catches have to be kept on board, landed and counted against the quotas. Undersized fish cannot be marketed for human consumption purposes. The landing obligation will be applied fishery by fishery. 

Details of the implementation will be included in multiannual plans or in specific discard plans when no multiannual plan is in place. These details include the species covered, provisions on catch documentation, minimum conservation reference sizes, and exemptions (for fish that may survive after returning them to the sea, and a specific de minimis discard allowance under certain conditions). Quota management will also become more flexible in its application to facilitate the landing obligation.

TtGaps comment:

In the UK the most concerned fishermen are those that operate in what are referred to as 'mixed fisheries' - typically bottom or demersal trawling - where the boat is fishing for a broad range of fish that inhabit the sea bed and not just targeting a single species as many pelagic trawlers or netters might. In a mixed fishery the spectre of 'choke species' looms large - where are single species of fish for which there is a small or non-existent quota is being caught which then prevents the boat from fishing in that area. At certain times of the year and in many areas this will be a constant problem for many vessels - and, as yet, an answer to the problem has yet to be found!

There are many references to be found on the web relating to this thorny subject:

http://www.fishermensvoice.com/archives/0311GroundfishermenFaceEconomicDisaster.html  

http://en.fvm.dk/fileadmin/user_upload/ENGLISH_FVM.DK/Themes/Yield_of_fish/Calculating_effects_of_choked_species.pdf 

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100602/full/465540a.html 

https://www.linkedin.com/groups/ON-CHOKE-SPECIES-3971738.S.106903949 

http://www.clientearth.org/reports/simply-mixed-fisheries.pdf 

Client Earth Paper 

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/faf.12079/abstract

Wednesday brings little ray of hope for the fleet as the MMO's ban on rays hits home

One for the record, possibly the last rays to be auctioned on Newlyn market this year...

much to the consternation of skipper Roger Nowell (L) seen her talking with fellow fisherman Dennis Pascoe about the shock ban on ALL ray and skate landings in Area VI & VII as of October 10th which many fishermen were unaware it seems...

the buyers are keen enough...

especially as ray is a popular fish in the south west...

and not one the boats can easily avoid catching - their size makes many technical measures to reduce catches unworkable and they can be found on many fishing grounds...

better stick to chasing the Dorys next time...

not seen too often,a box of scad...

while mackerel are still to be found around the coast...

as are these cracking big tub gurnards... 

it's that time of year when the cuttles literally 'paint it black' - look out for the Sapphire II landing a big trip of black gold on Friday...

maybe the Crystal Sea II will be tempted to try fishing for them this year...

today, the inshore fleet will be mainly staying in port owing to the strong winds off Cornwall.