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Friday 25 April 2014

#FishyFriday picture post puzzle

Which boat?

It's a misty morning on another #FishyFriday with foreign fish destined for foreign shores


Tom's view of the world is somewhat misty this morning...



with a still cold stream of air coming down from the North...



up at dawn, the inshore boat Serene Dawn takes on ice...



frequent visitor to the port, the classic West Country trading ketch, Irene ...



not one, or two or even three but four net drums fill the stern of the Boulogne registered trawler Saint Catherine Laboure...



as she lands to the back of a lorry on the end of the new quay...



the Padstow dredger Mannin has taken a berth in the old stone quay for the night...



on the market their are good quantities of high quality flats like these huge turbot...



and pristine brill...



not forgetting around 100 boxes of #Cornish hake from the Ajax...



and even a few cod still appearing on the grounds at the end of tyheir season...



the beamers touched on a good run of big flats to boost their earnings..



ice and fuel in one go...



the other French boat to land was the L'Arc en ciel (rainbow) though some younger readers might be more familiar with the Japanese band of the same name who have been around since 1991 ...



10 boxes at a time make landing quick work on the Saint Catherine Laboure...



though a little tricky for  the crew in the waiting artic trailer...



the L'Arc en ciel also works a mid-water trawl (on the net drum to the left) at times...



she sports an interesting piece of art work on her wheelhouse...



scaling the ice mountain so that Don has a fishroom full of the cold stuff for his next trip...



there's always work to do on the trawls...



latest addition to the Rowse fleet makes a good take-off point for a young gull...



the Bay looks like a scene from Jamaica Inn, mumble mumble mumble.

St Catherine Laboure dans Newlyn

Two trawlers from Boulogne land their fish in Newlyn


Two boats from Boulogne have landed their fish to a lorry in Newlyn this morning - the fish is destined for the huge fish market in their home port.

Thursday 24 April 2014

Good to see!

Hauling haddocks aboard the Budding Rose up in the North Sea


Good to see skipper Peter Bruce's boat Budding Rose is enjoying some clement weather after such a harsh winter. All this action was caught on the mighty midget of video technology designed to work in the harshest of conditions - the GoPro Hero 3. Tough enough to withstand the rigours of life on a trawler's deck the mini-sized GoPro will shoot stunning quality video no matter how poor the weather - the case is waterproof to 60m so no matter how big those seas rolling across the deck the camera will shrug them off and keep filming. There's an app to remotely control the camera from a smart phone or tablet - means you can use one of the many grips or accessories available to anchor the camera safely and then stop and start filming and change from narrow to ultra-wide field of view from the safety and comfort of the skipper's chair or wheelhouse!

Top tips if you decide to take the plunge - get the GoPro 3 or 3+ with built-in WiFi and get the additional battery back - and a spare battery or two - these kits are much cheaper than the makers and you get two different chargers!

Get the app for your smart phone to control the camera- making changes to the settings can be fiddly for numb fingers - especially those big sausages for fingers most fishermen have - and the app makes changing the setting a cinch.

Use the free editing software for the camera as it will bring out the best quality from the video you shoot. For most situations shoot with a wide or medium field of view at 1080p and 24 (or 60 if you want to make a bit of slow-mo) frames a second.





Fishing from Brixham in 1967


Great video of Brixham trawlermen shot in 1967 when the fishermen formed a cooperative to handle their catch and the fish market auction - it's successor BTA is till running successfully today

A few points to spot are, the lack of gloves worn by the guys handling the fish - whether they are at sea, landing or sorting the fish on the market - and the lack of ice on the fish at any stage!  Near the end is a shot of a chap from the White Fish Authority (WFA and predecessor to Seafish) using a measuring board to collect the length of fish data from the landings - probably the same board is still in use on the market today!