1˚ above freezing on this magical Monday morning in Newlyn.

With temperatures hovering around freezing overnight there was a certain crispness to the air this Monday morning...

as signs of the festive season begin to sprout...

all around the harbour...

not so sure about the latest concrete baubles being deposited on the beach...

where the Coombe river makes its way down to the sea...

all three market chill rooms...

including the grader section were chock-a-block with fish...

with MSC Certified hake from the Silver Dawn...

and the Stelissa...

mor-ki, morgy, morgi all pronounced 'murgy' by Newlyn fishermen - an old saying ran, "If you want a have a son, eat a dogfish in May!", on the right the larger cousin, bull huss...

even the gill netters are picking up craws these days...

medium size ling...

brown and spider claws...

the delicious red mullet...

a brace of big 'but...

the handliner's fridge will see that many fine dining establishments get more than their fair shore of quality line caught fish today with bass and mackerel...

squid...

more squid...

and a 118kg...

blue (yes, blue) fin tuna...

Tom on the Guardian very kindly provided examples of three different bream featured recently in the Newlyn Fish of the Week post, but where was the Couch's bream?!.

and a couple of bass to boot...

the Cornishman managed a few tubs of cuttles...

and this cracking eight-legger...

also landing hake was the netter Ajax...

and a specimen tub gurnard...

undulate ray don't come much bigger than this pair landed by the Cornishman...

while pollack was a feature of all the net boat landings...

another fine brill...

a solitary heron checked out the fishing in the harbour...

as the crew of the Enterprise went through their starboard side trawl...

another good haul of seabed litter came ashore...

almost all the Rowse fleet were in port tis morning...

the latest big crabber to join the Waterdance fleet, Winter of Ladram...

the Twilight is one of the largest boats able to make use of the slip...

seen here bow on...

her name and number picked out in the morning sun...

as the last of the antifouling goes on...

one of our buoys is missing...

luckily there is a tracking beacon fitted so the authorities were able to say exactly (almost) where it could be picked up...

as the sun rise...

there is ample opportunity to reflect on what the day might bring...

Newlyn's totally unique fishy Christmas tree...

adorns the space taken by the now filled-in Keel Alley alongside the old ice-works - which will one day soon be home to the Newlyn Heritage Centre.

Prins Bernhard - Day 12 - early morning magic.

 

"Between two trawl strokes, the Scombrus stops. This morning, at daybreak, the lights are particularly beautiful. We take the opportunity to film it - the Scombrus seems to float on the sea" Filmed from the Prins Bernhard.

France Pélagique welcomes on board its ships a documentary filmmaker, Thomas Troadec (Agence CATALPA ) to make you live live, for several weeks, a herring fishing campaign in the Channel aboard the Prins Bernhard. The objective of this unprecedented approach? It is clearly educational: to show the reality of life on board, fishing trades and techniques, as well as the regulatory framework

Embark : every morning, a postcard to discover here, and on the dedicated page of our website (https://lnkd.in/e8cBt_pS).

Prins Bernhard - Day 11 - using technonlogy to fish cleanly.

 

Sonars, sounders, pingers, sensors in trawls: how do these devices make fishing for pelagic species more selective, from the detection phase to that of the trawl turn?

"These devices allow the skipper to better predict what type of fish is under the boat, and to estimate the size of the shoals, which allows officers to target their fishing action. They also give an accurate indication of the amount of fish entering the trawl, allowing officers to know when they need to start hauling the trawl. 

Listen to Niels Hintzen, Director of Research at Wageningen University, stock valuation expert and member of the ICES Advisory Board, on the LinkedIn page of France Pélagique and on the dedicated page of our website (https://lnkd.in/e8cBt_pS).

Fabulous #FishyFriday in Newlyn.

When it comes to the light in Newlyn, while late winter evenings have their appeal...

it is the morning light that is so special...

and makes for such a great backdrop to all those hard at work as day breaks......

Friday's market was full of fish, much of it line or net caught like these coley...

and pollack from Britannia V...

cuttles came from both inshore and beam trawls...

while squid seem to have at last put in an appearance in numbers being caught by both trawl

and handliners working jigs...

a turbot this big needs a big oven, or careful filleting...

there were plenty of hake boxes of all grades to choose from, these from the netter Stelissa...

and these monster MSC Certified hake from the Ygraine...

the beam trawler Billy Rowney brought us brill, fish of the day last week in our journey from A-Z in the alphabet of fish landed here in Newlyn - and yes, there is a fish beginning with Z, often plaguing the cod ends of trawlers fishing handy to the Scillys...

Tom on the Guardian picked up a cracking red mullet...

and a few handy bass...

top eating fish haddock are seldom off the auctioneer's list in the morning...

pristine megrims form the Ygraine...

and of course there is hardly a market without monk tails, the mainstay of the beam trawl fleet when megs are scarce...

while the very best in pollack always feature when the netting fleet land...

though Brackan on the Spirited Lady III is a dab hand at catching them...

there's bass by the boxful...

and bream of course...

name this fish, landed by the Pelagic Marksman...

more pristine pollack from the Annie May...

as a few early contrails streak across the dawn sky...

which in turn lights up the Fishermen's Arms, which is due to open today after a catastrophic fire wiped out the pub before the Covid lockdowns!...

not wanting to miss yet another glorious start to the day, local artist Clare Bowen works as quickly as she can in her impressionistic style, having set up in the dark in order to capture the harbour at its best.

Fish of the day - Week 4 - Gilt-head Bream

Years ago, mention of bream in the company of fishermen would have likely to think you were referring to the act of cleaning off tar, by the application of heat,  from your boat. Tar was used for hundreds of years before paint to protect and preserve the wooden planks of fishing vessels - Ripple, the restored lugger in Newlyn still uses this method as a nod to her history - much to the chagrin of a few unaware yachties over the years who have left their once pristine white boast moored alongside her in the summer!

Bream, or in this case, a gilt-head bream landed by trawlers and netters working offshore. They are seldom landed by handliners working close to the shore. They look stunning, even more so when cooked and served whole on a plate as in the recipe below from Nathan Outlaw's British Seafood cook book.  Despite the delicate flesh, bream have a thick, scale covered skin that really lends itself to being cooked over charcoal in the summer BBQ season or baked whole in a hot oven - easy enough to 'carve' the fish at the table as it has big ones that make filleting easy. Like any fish, if you don't fancy dealing with the bones get your monger to fillet your fish and change the recipe accordingly!

As Britain's only 2-star Michelin fish chef says, you can get farmed bream - but here in Newlyn...

bream, be it gilt-head...

black, red...

or Couch's bream they all make fabulous eating - if you asked Keith Floyd for the colour of his choice he would opt for red - but then he would wouldn't he!

The most abhorrent occupation in the world?

 

Magnus Johnson, a marine scientist at the University of Hull, published this observation on his blog almost a decade ago, as many readers with good memories may recall – but it remains just as pertinent today. It is reprinted here with a new introduction, in which he reflects on how little has changed in the intervening decade.

"Almost 10 years ago, I published this article on my blog (marine-biology.net). It was at a time when it felt like fishing was being vilified through a co-ordinated effort by the NGO industry.

The only image of a fisherman that conservationists appeared to be willing to accept was a Captain Birdseye type: a bearded, wrinkly, sou’wester-clothed man battling against the sea in his little wooden boat, hand-hauling lines and nets to catch a few fish. The idea that fishing, like farming, is a primary industry that seeks to feed people and sustain local communities is an anathema to many of these conservation businesses.

In recent times I’ve thought ‘here we go again’ as I read complete untruths about North Sea cod being fished to extinction, the theft of the commons by the industrialisation of the sea as wind farms march across it, and clamour for generic exclusion of fishers from traditional grounds in Scottish waters by NGOs.

These NGOs are incredibly well funded and because they are opinion holders, rather than stakeholders, do not feel the pain caused to local communities by loss of real jobs and the ongoing gentrification of rural coastal towns.

The power of NGOs is huge and the fishing industry is up against Brandolini’s law (the fact that it takes 10 times as much effort to refute BS as it does to produce it in the first place). It’s really important that the industry support their representative organisations – at local and national scales. They are the people quietly and constantly working away on behalf of the industry to keep those in power properly informed.

Now, imagine you have a business…

 

You’re not breaking any laws and it’s something your family have been doing for hundreds of years. Your whole community has been doing it and whole cultures, traditions, music, stories and clothes have evolved around it. Industries have thrived on your products. Your product is gluten-free, contains no additives, has a low carbon cost, doesn’t involve ploughing and transforming the land, and gives us beautiful food that kings and commoners alike adore.

Your industry is one where workers can do well just by dint of tenacity and hard work. The aristrocracy and powerbrokers don’t go near it. Your activity is the source of identity for coastal communities. At work you are free.

Now imagine, having been bombarded with insultingly simplistic hyperbole about the impacts of your industry, that the middle classes decide not to like you. They view your job as one for greedy, good-for- nothing skivers, folk that take something for nothing. These people are more articulate than you, better off, better connected, more numerous, and have no economic link to your business. If you fail, it has no impact on them.

In fact, they earn more money the more despicable they can make you appear. Casting aspersions on your character and industry is a multi-million- pound business. Not only that, but their success in vilifying you makes them feel smug. These people make such a good job of making you look bad because that is what they are paid to do; they can afford good lawyers and bad politicians.

You, on the other hand, are paid to work. Not to wear a suit and sit in an office wearing a shirt and tie in meeting after meeting, discussing the nuances of situations over canapés.

You find yourself and your industry being eroded. Not by fact-based evidence but by the wild ramblings of people who are ideologically driven to persecute those who make a living from a common resource.

If this is you, my friend, you are a fisherman. Be proud. Be strong. Be safe."

Dr Magnus Johnson is a lecturer in environmental marine science at the Centre for Environmental and Marine Sciences, University of Hull. His views are his own.