First #FishyFriday in June and so much fish!

Earlier in the week the market was bust enough with the St Georges taking full advantage of the big tide...

as did Tom on the Guardian...

Friday morning saw a market packed end-to-end with fish from five boats landing their trips of  white fish - just as well all the prawns the Scottish boats landed went into the back of their refrigerated transport yesterday...

the range and quality of fish was up to its usual high standard with cracking examples of tub gurnard...

witch soles...

big haddock...

bib monk...

and really big monk...

more haddock...

and even a shot of big cod from the Ajax...

both the one beam trawler to land and the Scottish boys...

 put ashore plenty of megrim sole...

while Dovers gave up what they were really targeting west of Scilly...

most of the hake came courtesy of the netter Ajax...

while all the prawn boats picked up varying amounts of John Dory...

and the full range of ray...

while the Dawn Star landed this near specimen turbot...

big monk from another angle...

and big thornback ray from another...

and yet more JDs...

and a full trip of tangle-net turbot...

while just a few boxes of top quality line caught fish like these pollack...

and bass  was up for auction in the fridge...

someone picked out enough for a feed tonight...

from the fish landed by the prawn boats the ex-Orion now Faithful and Ocean Crest both now taking on fuel...

that's a lot of gear packed in a compact space to enable twin-rigging on a relatively small bot...

the yachts that call in to Newlyn come from far and wide and as a rule are accomplished sailors - you have to be to have the confidence to take in rounding the Lizard and lands En, even at tis time of year...

a bigger boat can carry her net drums atop the shelterdeck without adversely affecting er stability...

this is not what you want to see come up in the cod end!..

time for the Falmouth scalloper to have work below the waterline carried out...

Border Patrol at rest.

 

From boat to plate: tracing the lobster Coding For Crayfish VOSTF

 

In South Africa, lobster fishermen are victims of mafias who ransack the resource by exploiting the fishermen. The Abalobi association has set up a program with fishermen and restaurateurs to allow total transparency and traceability from the boat to the restaurateur's table. 

A film presented at the Pêcheurs du Monde festival in 2023.

At rest.

 

'A' is for Algrie, end of an fishing era.

Beam trawler Algrie PZ199

A piece of fishing history left through the gaps this week on her way to be scrapped in Ghent, Belgium - the Algrie was the very first trawler purchased by the Stevenson family fishing firm to enter the harbour in 1976 and start was to become the the largest privately owned beam trawl fishing fleet in Europe.....

but for her early years she was rigged for both beam trawling and midwater trawling for the winter mackerel season- seen here in Penzance Dock under the 'digger' landing mackerel for fish meal...

under the watchful eye of Tony Stevenson, brother to owner Billy..

by the 1980s the Algrie,  along with the Aaltje Adriante and the Anneliese were all beaming full time...

In 1982, the 70ft Algrie found her beam trawls attached to the nuclear attack sub HMS Spartan in the waters off Land’s End in 1982 and towed her for quite some time before the sub surfaced. Legend has it that, at first, the Navy via the coastguard, denied there was a submarine in the area! The Algrie was then ordered to cut free her gear before the sub moved on. It was understood to have cost £8,000....

in the late 1990s, the Algrie's stern was covered in to provide better safety and living conditions for the crew. The boat was a consistently high earner for the family firm under a number of skippers including David Stevens and David Hooper 

The Algrie and William Samspon Stevenson heading out through the gaps for the last time, ironically, David Hooper skippered both boats for much of his time with the Stevenson's...

the previous week saw the first of the James RH and the Lisa Jacqueline towed away to be scrapped - video courtesy of Stevenson's superintendent, Abbie Smith...

48 hours later, the two boats are heading up river to the breakers.

Final #FishyFriday in May

Another glorious start to the day and end of the week in Newlyn with a hint of gold spreading below the fish market at low water...

auction visitors took advantage of a wide range of fish to capture on film...

indluding this cracking eight-legger from one of the inshore crabbers...

and some big bull buss...

fish landings were mainly from a single beam trawler and the inshore boats keen to make the market before the long Bank Holiday weekend...

shades or reds and greys...

it's always good to get the opportunity to show off the thriving port to those who work closely with the likes of Defra and Cefas so that they get to better understand the complexities of fishing and what it means for those who make a living from the sea...

which often means a week at sea followed by days of hard grind putting back together and repairing gear so that they fish in the most productive way in order to provide a living for both the crews and the owners...

one man who knows more than most about hard grind at sea is a certain Mr Pascoe...

seen here waving us off after getting out to sea for the first time in a couple of years to land a few kilos of cuttles - though he could have done without the flop he said! Good to see you Dennis!

 

Fish of the week 26 - monk

 

Monk, or angler fish as it is sometimes referred to - because of the means by which it lures it's prey in front of its...

huge teeth and throat-lined mouth mouth...

are landed whole by visiting Scottish and Spanish boats...

but local boats have always practised the tailing of the fish at sea - the head making up nearly two-thirds of a whole fish...

the very smallest grade often referred to as 'scampi tails' - a hangover from the days when many unscrupulous restaurants near and far used to prepare small slices of monk dressed in breadcrumbs and deep-fried and pass them off as scampi - oh how times have changed!

Inhabiting the sandy bottom of the seas around the south west, the fish are caught in greatest quantity by the beam trawlers and netters using tangle nets, Their total landings represent the fourth by value in Newlyn. 

The Cornwall good seafood guide tells the story in more detail.

Monk is a very versatile fish and can be used in a wide range of dishes, not the cheapest fish but it is totally bone free and therefore a great fish to serve up to any for whom fish bones are a no-no! Here is a recipe for spiced monkfish from Galton Simpson's cook book, Hook, Line and Sinker but you'll find a huge variety of recipes for the fish in any of your favourite fish chefs' cook book!

The Granite Kingdom ready to be read now!

Son of Newlyn fisherman and adopted Scot Des Hannigan, Tim Hannigan will be in the Edge of the World bookshop tonight giving a talk on his just published book, The Granite Kingdom. A fascinating, lyrical account of an east-west walk across Britain's westernmost and most mysterious region. A distant and exotic Celtic land, domain of tin-miners, pirates, smugglers and evocatively named saints, somehow separate from the rest of our island. 

Few regions of Britain are as holidayed in, as well-loved or as mythologized as Cornwall. From the woodlands of the Tamar Valley to the remote peninsula of Penwith - via the wilderness of Bodmin Moor and coastal villages where tourism and fishing find an uneasy coexistence - Tim Hannigan undertakes a zigzagging journey on foot across Britain's westernmost region to discover how the real Cornwall, its landscapes, histories, communities and sense of identity, intersect with the many projections and tropes that writers, artists and others have placed upon it. Combining landscape and nature writing with deep cultural inquiry, The Granite Kingdom is a probing but highly accessible tour of one of Britain's most popular regions, juxtaposing history, myth, folklore and literary representation with the geographical and social reality of contemporary Cornwall. 

This video, shot in the 80s as a promotion for the West Penwith 'Experience' and narrated by local Cornishman newspaper editor Douglas Williams evokes just a small pat of what makes Cornwall home.