Fabulous #FishyFriday here in Newlyn.

Cracking start to the day in Newlyn...

with SC Certified hake from the Ocean Pride...

and Stelissa landed overnight...

name this fish...

plenty of summer turbot to go round...

and some cracking big red tub gurnard...

and mullet...

to go with that summertime favourite...

John Dory...

a solid landing of lemons came courtesy of the Venture...

a pair of ray wings...

very early season sardines...

and mackerel made up just a few of the 57 species of fish landed - there's not another market in the UK that regularly brings such a wide range of fish to the market...

all whisked away in timely fashion...

all hands wondering if these orange balls will make a difference...

they missed one...

due back in the water to chase sardines on Tuesday,  Golden Harvest is up on the slip for a below the waterline overhaul...

as Victoria Anne heads out to sea through the gaps.

 

CFPO plea for fuel cost support from the government.

The cost of fuel has now risen to such an extent that boats are tied up unable to guarantee owners and crew a living wage. The Cornwall Fish producers Organisation have written to fisheries minster Victoria Prentis demanding that she take action to preserve jobs and keep the fleet at sea.

It wasn't all black and white on Tuesday morning's market in Newlyn.

 

BM7 Monty of Ladram (formerly Lady Maureen) uses her bow thruster to take up a berth alongside the fish market in Newlyn to land...

the market was laden with flats like these Dover Sole...

and John dory from the beam trawler Cornishman...

along with the first of this season's MSC Certified Cornish Sardines...

Cap'n Cod, the bass man was busy the previous evening with this nice little haul of summer fish...

along with a shot of line caught mackerel...

he was not alone...

though for this first-time mackerel tripper pickings were not quite so plentiful, early days yet Jason...

it won't be long before skipper Carroll takes command of his new crabber, Winter of Ladram, currently undergoing finishing touches up at Parkol Marine in Whitby...

heading back to berth under a heavenly morning sky...

the biggest landing by volume was several hundred boxes of haddock from the seiner Acciona...

along a handful of lemons from the port's latest addition to the inshore fleet, Guardian, Tom's replacement for the Harvest Reaper...

whole monk added to the Acciona's trip...

as did a good shot of hake...

bettered by the netter Ygraine's good looking hake landing...

name the fish...

the right kind, just not enough for some...

young George just cannot resist those red mullet on the market...

another Ladram boat top enjoy the delights of Newlyn, the inshore trawler

it's a laugh-a-minute aboard the Karen of Ladram...

built over 100 years ago in 1905, the Bristol Channel pilot cutter, Letty

built not quite so long ago, the Cornishman...

and the seiner, Acciona.

The fish and fisheries of Jones Bank and the wider Celtic Sea - a 'must read' for hake and langoustine skippers.

Historic AIS traces of the Jones Bank and surrounding sea area courtesy of VesselTracker.

The Celtic Sea is a diverse fishing ground that supports important commercial fisheries for a range of demersal fish, large and small-bodied pelagic fish and a variety of cephalopods and other shellfish. A regional overview of the main commercial fish stocks of the Celtic Sea and of the fish that occur in the vicinity of Jones Bank are provided through analyses of landings data from English and Welsh vessels, and from scientific trawl surveys. Dedicated smaller scale sampling via trawl surveys combined with baited cameras on and around the Jones Bank were also analysed to investigate the importance of sandbank habitats with attention paid to the differences in the species occurring on the top of the bank in comparison to adjacent off-bank habitats. Official landing statistics for UK (English and Welsh) vessels indicated that the predominant commercial demersal species in ICES Divisions VIIg,h (in terms of quantities landed) were anglerfish, megrim, pollack and skates (Rajidae).

There were, however, regional differences in the distribution of fish and fisheries, and the area surrounding Jones Bank (ICES Rectangles 28E1 and 28E2) supports fisheries for megrim, anglerfish, skates, hake, ling and turbot, with otter trawl, gillnet and beam trawl the main gears used. Recent survey data collected with GOV (Grande Ouverture Verticale) trawl from the Celtic Sea (ICES Divisions VIIe-h, 2007–2010) were used to highlight the broad scale dis- tribution of the main fish assemblages in the Celtic Sea. Analyses of the fish and cephalopod catches from these surveys indicated that there were four broad assemblages in the area, including 

(i) a region around the Cornwall (which will also be partly influenced by the necessity to use rockhopper ground gear on these rough grounds), 

(ii) the shallower regions of the north-western Celtic Sea (including parts of the Bristol Channel), 

(iii) the deeper parts of the outer shelf and 

(iv) the central Celtic Sea. 

These data also provided information on the ichthyofauna of the Jones Bank. Further site-specific data for bank and off-bank habitats were collected during dedicated surveys on the Jones Bank in 2008 using commercial trawlers and baited camera deployments. Twenty-three species were recorded on the top of the bank, where horse mackerel, haddock and boarfish were the most abundant species; 18 species were found along the slope of the bank (with blue whiting, poor cod, hake and horse mackerel predominant) and 18 species observed off the bank (where catches were dominated by blue whiting, poor cod and hake).

The differences between camera and trawls were important with cameras only picking up 28% of the spe- cies seen in the trawls. However both camera and trawl results suggest that some species are very habitat specific, with species such as haddock only observed on the top of the bank, whilst Nephrops norvegicus was abundant on the flat areas off the bank but was infrequent on the top of the bank. These results suggest that future surveys of offshore sandbank habitats should stratify sampling more specifically to deal with smaller scale features that may play an important role in providing a greater range of habitats than just their relative size would suggest.

Mighty quiet Monday morning.

The Elisabeth of Ladram is just one of ahandful of boats in port this morning...

joined by the Falmouth trawler, Jacqui...

out with the old style derrick heads...

and on with the new for the Trevessa IV...

after Friday night in action with his rod, Mike is back to normal, away on another trawling trip with the Imogen this Monday morning...

picking were very slim for the few inshore boats that landed over the weekend...

some boxes with just one or two examples of each fish...

though the hand-liners fared better with landings of both pollack...

and mackerel.