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Wednesday 10 April 2019

Inshore fish for the mid-week market in Newlyn

With a break in the poor weather all of the inshore trawlers put to sea and landed by this morning...

with their usual mix of quality flats and other groundfish...

also able to get back fishing were the much smaller punts like the Butts fishing with handlines for pollack and mackerel...

while ray...

John Dory...

and the odd bass...

were picked up by the trawlers...

working up to 20 miles from Newlyn...

some picking up more JDs than others...

while the two beam trawlers that landed stuck with their hauls of monk tails...

Dover sole...

red mullet...

and lemons...

the inshore boats do well if they pick up just a few boxes of Dovers...

among all the flats they catch...

though some had better luck with a nice touch of John Dory...

still plenty of mackerel in St Ives Bay it seems...

more than enough to tempt young Mr Cleave on his first buying trip for the week in Newlyn...

and Colin from Mousehole Fish having to fight for his box of fish it seems...

just enough for a big dinner plate - pristine white belly of the turbot...

Fishing for Leave fan Jeremy heads to the market...

to pick up boxes of frozen bait for his pots...

and head out to sea...

meanwhile, there's a Dutch refrigerated lorry waiting on the quay for one of the powerful beam trawlers that has been targeting Dover sole in the Bristol Channel deep off Newquay...

boats like the Z115 Antje de Vries use Newlyn to overland their fish back to ports like Ijmuiden in Holland before heading straight back to the fishing grounds again...

otherwise they would lose 48 hours making the long round trip back to a Dutch port just to land their fish - it also means they can land more often and not do such long trips to keep the quality f the catch as high as possible...

there's one of the newer members of the Brixham beam trawl fleet...

in Newlyn this morning, Sam of Ladram

the crabber, Chris Tacha all set to sail for a day on the pots...

whereas it doesn't look like the beam trawler Sara Shaun will be fishing anytime soon...

must be Spring as the Defiant is back in Newlyn...

Cod aboard the Butts heads for the fish market to land his morning's work.

Monday 8 April 2019

Brexit: Breton fishermen fear an exit without agreement

VesselTracker AIS for the trawler Itasca.

Increasingly Breton and national media channels are looking in depth at the implications for their fishing fleets if the UK exits the EU without a deal. The AIS track taken from VesselTracker for the St Brieux trawler Itasca since January 1st this year shows just how much time she spends fishing inside the UK half of the median line which, should the UK leave without a deal, would be within sovereign waters.

Like many Breton vessels fishing off Cornwall the Itasca has made good use of Newlyn over the years - stopping for ice and other supplies as well as using Newlyn for shelter in extreme weather - Newlyn is a port of International Refuge.

Video courtesy of FranceTV

This latest report from FranceTV:

With nine tons of fish on board, Itasca returns to its port, in Finistère. At the controls of this ship, Gwendal Boezennec, fisherman from father to son for three generations. He explains working in the middle of the Channel, the British side and is very worried about Brexit. In Brittany, 80% of catches are made in English waters, 600 boats are fishing 95,000 tons of fish in these areas each year.

Too many Europeans in French waters?

"If we are all in the French Channel with the Dutch and Belgians who come in French waters, it will be overfished and it will not be profitable", feared Dominique Thomas, representative of the high seas Cotes d'Armor. But some professionals remain optimistic because they hope for an agreement that would suit both sides: the Europeans could continue to fish in British waters and the British would continue to sell their surplus fish on the continent.

Like UK fishermen they too would love to see a considered response to this question put to Nigel gooding at Defra two years ago:

"The EU referendum and the majority vote to leave the EU was met with jubilation from the UK fishing industry, and has been characterised by many as "a sea of opportunity". The BIG question now is in what manner this "sea of opportunity" is to be realised for the fishermen of the UK? The benefits of leaving the EU, and the infamous CFP are numerous; and should empower the UK Government to design, and implement a fisheries management system that works for both fish resources, and the fishermen that depend upon them. The business of fishing has never been plain sailing, and a "Fisheries Brexit" doesn't seem like being an easy affair either.

The media coverage of Michael Gove's recent visit to Denmark; where he gave "assurance" to Danish fishermen that they would still have access to UK waters post-Brexit, has been seen by many as yet another sell out of the fishing industry. Also, the reported clash between Michael Gove and Chancellor Philip Hammond over the use of fisheries as a bargaining chip in the wider Brexit negotiations has done little to lessen their fears. Both Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Emmanuel Macron have expressed that they will fight for their respective fishing industries to achieve the best possible post-Brexit deal. This has left many UK fishermen in a state of shock and disbelief, fearing now that the industry will once again be used as a pawn in achieving a favourable Brexit deal with the EU. It must be made absolutely clear that the UK post-Brexit WILL have an exclusive 200nm/ median line economic zone; and the UK fishing industry, finally will have exclusive access to the UK territorial seas out to 12 nm.

The UK Government will have the absolute power to decide on who will be granted access, and under what conditions. Granting of reciprocal access to foreign vessels is a common practice in bilateral fisheries negotiations; where access can be granted on historical use of the area, quota swaps, and or, if there are exploitation pattern gains to be had in relation to catching older and larger fish.

It is a common acknowledgment within the fishing industry, that everything is paid for by what is caught in the net, and landed on the market. The main focus for the catching sector, irrespective of Brexit is to identify exclusive UK stocks, and quantify zonal attachment for stocks that are deemed to be shared.

Realigning Relative State allocations in relation to ecosystem creep is of utmost importance; as a means of mitigating the possibility for chokes species such as NS hake, and area VIIE haddock and VIID cod. This is especially important in respect to the Landings Obligation/Discard Ban, which comes into full force in 2019.

The UK government has commissioned work into mapping the extent of zonal attachment for stocks shared with the EU and other parties such as Norway/Faeroe. This is an assignment that the UK should not pursue alone, if there is to be any chance of reaching a consensus and ratification by all parts. This work needs to be undertaken in a joint EU-UK working group, and under the scrutiny of an unbiased third party such as ICES, and with observers from countries such as USA and Canada. ICES have informed that they have not received any request from the UK Government to assist in this important and necessary work on defining zonal attachment.

Should the Government decide to use UK fish resources as a bargaining chip, then it's important to quantify how much fish, and for what it is being traded for"