From Wednesday evening into #FishyFriday morning in Newlyn

Blue moons notwithstanding, it's late on Wednesday evening as skipper Shane Liddicoat steers the IFCA Fisheries Patrol boat St Piran in through the gaps...

to her berth for the night...

a few hours later and the Scillys ferry, Scillonian III is bathed in yet another dose of glorious morning sunlight...

later that evening Newlyn's resident fat seal...

chows down on a whole fresh hake for supper...

as one of the trawl doors on the Shiralee...

gets a gentle massage with a chisel and lump hammer courtesy of trawlerman Jeff Page...

astern of her the Karen of Ladram has just landed several hundred boxes of hake...

and the film crew captures footage of the Ajax taking ice after landing...

and director/cameraman Luke wields his hefty Canon...

and tries to muster the boys around their skipper...

in order to frame the traditional skipper+crew+wheelhouse name shot...

as the ice flows aboard....

and their 230 hundred box trip of fish waits in the fridge for the night staff to come on shift to sort, grade, weigh and present the fish for Friday morning's market...

which has an unusual collection of shellfish up for auction this morning including these large sea urchins

whelks...

and crab claws...

the odd big blonde...

there was hake form four netters all told including a huge trip of white fish from the Stelissa...

caught on camera...

before being whisked away...

the buyer's tallies just kept coming...

for hake from the Karen of Ladram...

a double dose of black bream from an inshore boat...

with the odd hake keeping an eye on things...

with row after row of stacked boxes...

that filled both the grader chill room ...

and the main auction hall...

with four beam trawlers making up the biggest market for weeks with big trips from the Billy Rowney...

William Sampson...

Twilight III...

with lemon soles

monk tails...

and haddock...

the odd red mullet...

and a big shot of spur dogs from the Ajax, one of only a handful of boats licensed to retain these now abundant fish on board...

along with his shot of hake...

more than enough to keep auctioneer Ryan busy...

on such a crowded market...

with fish boxes covering most of the floor...

not that that deters the buyers from making the most of the moment...

as more hake comes up for auction...

PZ810, almost ready to go back to sea...

as the William Sampson takes on a few thousand litres of fuel before sun-up.

Skipper Stephen Leach 1950-2018

Stephen Leach, one of Newlyn's fishing gentlemen has died this week.

Stephen Leach aboard the Wyre Star in Milford Haven 1984

'Leachy' was a trawlerman through and through and one of the youngest skippers ever to get his full masters ticket when fishing out of Lowestoft. After many years fishing on the big trawlers of the day in the 70s and early 80s he moved to St Ives in Cornwall having invested in the Fleetwood registered 64 foot trawler, Wyre Star. The photo above shows Stephen with his son Gary in the stern of the Wyre Star after running into Miflord Haven from the Smalls in bad weather.

Stephen was one of around fifteen 50-60 foot trawlers that worked from Newlyn at the time. For many summers he fished for langoustine, often landing into Dunmore in Ireland. The Wyre Star, like many boats in Newlyn at the time was scrapped under the decommissioning scheme to reduce fishing effort across the EU.

He replaced the boat with the Wayfinder and re-registered her in St Ives as SS252. As with his previous command, Stephen and his son Gary worked the boat three or four handed depending on the time of year and continued to fish for langoustine on the Small grounds during the summer months. 

In the 1980s as the local fleet expanded rapidly to take advantage of high prioces and abundant fish a group of Newlyn trawler and netter skippers decided that the harbour needed an independent iceworks to supply the ever-growing fleet of private vessels in the harbour as demand was at times outstripping local supplies. Stephen, along with fellow trawler skipper Mervyn Mountjoy was one of the founding members of the Cornish Ice Company Limited.

After retiring, he and Gary decided that 'small is beautiful'...

and a new family boat of a very different class was purchased - the catamaran, Bethshan...

which son Gary now works mainly handlining for fish like mackerel in St Ives Bay.

This section of the Fishing Boats in Newlyn Harbour 1994 video starts with Stephen and son Gary aboard the Wyre Star in 1994.

Electronic Monitoring Program Toolkit: A Guide for Designing and Implementing Electronic Monitoring Programs

This comprehensive 15-page report published in October, 2018 by The Nature Conservancy walks the reader through design and implementation of an EM program.


From the Introduction:

The majority of global fisheries lack the scientific and compliance data necessary for effective management. A variety of approaches and tools can facilitate data collection on the water and help ensure compliance, yet the use of human observers or other reporting or patrol options tend to be infrequently used, subject to bias and misreporting, and are typically expensive to employ. The lack of accurate on-the-water data collection hampers the ability of fishery managers to assess the health of fish stocks and to effectively manage fisheries, potentially resulting in economic losses, declining fish populations, and a degraded marine environment. Accordingly, many fishery managers have begun to look to new technologies to help fill in critical data gaps.

Electronic Monitoring (EM) has the potential to be a scalable solution for collecting critical data and using it to employ new management strategies, enable robust assessment of fish stock health, and facilitate accurate monitoring of vessel compliance with the concomitant reduction of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. In fact, EM has been shown to perform commensurately with, or in many instances, outperform, other at-sea monitoring tools (e.g., human observers and logbooks) with regards to accuracy, cost, and data integrity, and EM performance is continuously improving (see Box 1). EM also offers promising applications that are beneficial to industry, such as enhancing crew and observer safety and preventing theft or shrinkage of catch.

This toolkit presents an overview of key questions and issues that may arise when governmental bodies in general, and fishery managers in particular, are considering the development and implementation of EM programs. For purposes of this toolkit, EM refers to a system that includes cameras, hard drives (or similar data storage or transmission devices), electronic storage and optional gear sensors installed on fishing vessels. The EM system is used in conjunction with GPS data to provide detailed information on fishing locations, times, methods and/or total catch and bycatch (including discards). Other electronic information systems such as e-logbooks may be used independently or in conjunction with EM systems. However, this toolkit is confined to EM systems.

How to Use this Toolkit

This toolkit is a guide that is written in sequence, walking through the main steps to consider when developing an EM program. The toolkit identifies key decision points and potential outcomes, beginning with program planning and system design, followed by program costs, evaluation, and adaptation. Understanding how a general EM program operates, and how a program may be adapted over time, should inform overall program design. The guide may be useful to first in full, and then revisit separate sections as necessary.

Full story courtesy of Electroinic Monitoring:

Please take part in the 2018 Bass Survey for Sea Bass Fisheries Conservation UK (SBFC UK).

Line caught bass 

Welcome to the 2018 Bass Survey for Sea Bass Fisheries Conservation UK (SBFC UK).

Please read the following information before starting the survey. ​

All fishers, both recreational and commercial across the UK (excluding Scotland) can take part in this survey. If you are not a fisher, please email us for further details on how you can contribute. SBFC UK is a project tasked with describing sea bass fisheries on a regional level to help improve future sea bass conservation and management. This survey allows us to complete that description by gathering information directly from you, we will collate this evidence to create an accurate picture of regional sea bass fisheries in the UK. We also want to underline where data gaps are to help prioritise our science to best suit the needs of fishers in each region. We hope to address these data gaps through fisher-led data collection and collaborations, email us for more details.

To take the survey please click here:

Once you've completed the survey, please feel free to share this survey using the link: https://tinyurl.com/SBFC-UK-Bass-Survey-2018

Important guidelines: 

This is a confidential survey and will take approximately 10-15 minutes. Only one entry can be submitted per person, to enter for more than one individual, using one device, please contact us. You can go back and edit your responses until you exit the survey by selecting "Go Back". You cannot save your progress between sessions, so please complete the survey before exiting. You can keep an eye on your progress with the progress bar at the bottom of each page.

​

This survey closes on the 31st December 2018 at 23:59. Thank you for your participation!


If you experience any issues please email sbfc@cefas.co.uk.

Anchovy - an exceptional year - in Brittany!

Looks like our Breton cousins are having a good anchovy season!

Yestarday's, Ouest France - a daily paper for the Brittany region of France ran this story:

Special port in Bolinche, Saint-Guénolé-Penmarc'h (Finistère) benefits this year of strong contributions in anchovies. 2018 is the year of records: 2,300 tons were fished.

Yann Raphalen, director of the auction in St. Guénolé-Penmarc'h

"An exceptional year. " Yann Raphalen, director of the auction in St. Guénolé-Penmarc'h (Finistère) since 2015, sets 2018 as regards the supply of anchovies. The record of 2017 (1,620 tons) has been largely beaten compared to 2,300 tons this year! And it's not over…

Higher selling price:

"Purse seining", because of its uncertain side, remains difficult to manage at auction level. "It's the charm of the job! ". Especially since 70% of the Penmarch's area's activity is linked to this fishery. This year, a fleet of 21 seiners worked, because of the fishing areas, between Douarnenez, in August in particular and the Bigoudène auction.

Depending on the weather conditions, the anchovy could still make exceptional landings by October 20th, the end date of quota renewals. "Good volumes but also a fish of good size, sometimes representing less than 35 pieces per kilo. And therefore a higher selling price, " says Yann Raphalen.

More complicated sardine:

Anchovy has given good results to the port of Saint-Guénolé. Because, until the end of July, as in the surrounding ports, the landings of other species was not impressive. On the langoustine side, 2018 does not follow in the footsteps of the previous years. In sardine, the figures for July and August are well below the usual intake: "We were at 400 tons last August, and 800 that same month in 2017," points Yann Raphalen. No reduction, given the 95-ton landing on Tuesday, October 9 ... "Depending on weather conditions, it's far from over. "

In both coastal and coastal fishing, Saint-Guénolé is a stronghold in terms of added value. "We should find a balance in the number of boats," says the director of the auction. Take the example of the Commodore, which now sells in Saint-Gué, but also three units of the Le Brun company present this summer.

New software project:

A cold room of 1000 m2, room for coastal fishing, storage hall for bolincheurs ... With its computerized sales system and its amphitheater, Saint-Guénolé was classified as "the most modern auction of Europe" in 1987.

"We always use this tool , continues Yann Raphalen. Today, it should be updated in relation to other sites. " Looking ahead to the bid which, Penmarch'aise specificity, is down. "It's penalizing certain high-value products, such as turbot, for example. "

As part of the standardization of sales, a new software project is being studied since this year, in connection with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Brittany West (CCIMBO). implementation of the landing obligations by the vessels, should lead to a change in the auction organisation.

A director from the field

Director of the fish auction of Saint-Guénolé since 2015, Yann Raphalen is at the head of a team of 15 employees on permanent contracts, to which are added four temporary workers because of the contributions of blue fish. After holding many positions in this auction, he succeeded, as director, Fañch Dorval, retired.

Mid-week fish market in Newlyn.

The morning auction huddle begins around...

 box stacks six high of line caught mackerel...

a few bass...

and a handful of squid...

also stacked are the boxes of hake from the only netter to land this morning, the Joy of Ladram...

other fish ready for this morning's auction include a few sardines...

red mullet...

ray...

and John Dory...

while this single cuttlefish from the Danmark just about sums up the seemingly non-existent cuttlefish season to date...

outnumbered by trawl caught lobster!..

and bream...

this conger would make a whole lot of fish cakes - for which it does an excellent job, add plenty of butter and fresh parsley to the mix for a real treat...

despite the early hour and going against the natural body clocks, much of the sale is carried out in good humour...

especially with stunning fish like these line caught bass...

and a big shot of ray from the Imogen III...

now and then the odd tuna gets caught on the lines...

inshore trawl fish, predominately flats like Dover, megrim and lemon sole...

along with the inevitable haddock catch...

although young Roger on the Imogen III...

just can't help mixing it with those John Dory whenever he gets the chance...

these days the boats seldom land good shots of whiting which, as a species, seem to have been usurped by the now very plentiful but sadly almost quota-less haddock - the fish that in ICES Area VII will undoubtedly be the fish that causes the biggest headache as the (seemingly unworkable) LO (Landing Obligation) kicks in next year...

as Brexit talks come to a head, spot the interlopers from across the channel...

through the square doorway this morning...

name this fish...

with its vicious looking dorsal spines...

though bass are not without spiky bits - the gill plates on these gorgeous fish are blessed with a single sharp point that has caught many an angler out when handling a wriggling bass for the first time...

taking a berth at the ice works, the Amanda of Ladram...

the sale is almost over.

CFPO launches a new film series on fishing in Cornwall!

This Autumn, the CFP are launching an exciting new film series. There's a new film each week - sharing stories of fish and people around Cornwall, and showcasing the CFPO community on land and at sea.

Join us for a journey around the Cornish coast, to meet the people that catch some of the UK's most sustainable seafood.

Stay tuned, the full series of videos will be launched from the 29th of October.