As we steam around the Breakwater, it’s midday on Tuesday 14th of January. Our crew consist of Matt (skipper), Callum (mate), John (Deckhand/cook), Vassy (deckhand/engineer) and Kieran (
Ed, the mate/relief skipper, is on his trip off this week. The crew are all in high spirits as we sail out to sea because our first trip of the year brought in a decent catch and we’re looking forward to getting to grips with this trip and bring in another good one. As we pass around Berry Head I am still not 100% sure which fishing grounds we are going to go to yet, but a key consideration will be the weather forecast, it’s telling us it is due to freshen up in the next couple of days.
Decision made, I reckon it’s a good idea to go to the
Whilst the weather is calm it is to our advantage to get as much quality prime fish aboard as we can including Dover sole, monkfish and turbot, and also a small amount of cuttlefish. We will catch this before the weather gets worse and then we will change fishing grounds, heading North to more in mid channel in the clearer grounds. This will not ruin the gear as much by picking up stones and rocks in the lumpy seas.
It’s Important To Use The Right Gear
We use the fresher weather to concentrate on cuttlefish and we have attached chain matt gear to the fishing trawl. The chains are designed to stop so many rocks coming in to the gear.
In this picture opposite, you can see Vassy and Kieron repairing stone mats after 2 shackles parted out and the other picture shows the consequences of this with the rocks in the fish hopper causing damage to the fish and the cod ends.
Our trawls are made by local net maker Darren Edwards of Brixham Trawl Makers
The trawls are very streamlined (larger meshes) which makes it better for towing which in turn makes the vessel more economical when it comes to fuel consumption. In these larger meshes, we are catching fewer rocks, stones and benthos (
Due to the streamlining effect, they are also good for discards as we work big meshes all the way down from the top of the trawl to the cod end. The cod end is the end of the trawl net where we release the fish onto the boat. This means that we very rarely catch any
Matt
Repairing Stone Mats
