the Sparkling Star The small North Devon trawler fleet has been busy this week. Boat Stories spoke briefly to Paul Stone, skipper of the Sparkling Star out fishing in the Bristol Channel, close by the Star’s sister ship “Our Olivia Belle.” On a mobile which kept cutting out he said “we’re nestled out quietly by ourselves, you wouldn’t think anyone else was around. And the fishing is good.” Great news after the rough winter the fishermen have had. Paul was fishing just outside the Trevose box, a huge area of seabed, roughly between Padstow and Milford Haven, running west towards Ireland, which was closed for a few months to allow species like cod and sole to reproduce. Paul used the words ‘you wouldn’t think’ because a quick check on the Marine Traffic website shows that these two trawlers are far from alone. Marine Traffic picks up the Automatic Identification Signal (AIS) from all larger boats and as I check now it looks as though someone has scattered a pile of colourful boat-shaped sweets over the map between the North Cornish coast and Wales. Colourful because different ships: tankers, cargo vessels, passenger ships and pleasure boats each have their own colour. I can see how watching your boats as they move across the map can become addictive!
Paul said, “I saw probably 26 boats steaming the channel waiting for the Trevose box to open at midnight on Monday and there’s maybe thirty trawlers south of us now, from Belgium, Holland and France and other UK ports, I think we’re the only boats from North Devon out here.” (By the way all these boats are fishing legally, within the European common fisheries policy and outside the 12 mile offshore limit.) At 15 metres the two North Devon boats from S & P fish are also amongst the smallest, many of the trawlers out there with them are beam trawlers: anything from 24 to 40 metres in length. Paul added “it’s one of the best hauls I’ve had for thirty years. But with this crazy number of boats it could be game over, very quickly.” Meanwhile the Ray box, off the North Devon coast, set up voluntarily by North Devon fishermen to protect the spawning grounds and brood stock of various ray species is still closed.
Don’t worry Boat Stories is not going to get stuck into European fishing policy (we have six films to get on and make) but we are genuinely interested in any boat stories happening off the coast – and what it is like for local fishermen and fish.
Paul said, “I saw probably 26 boats steaming the channel waiting for the Trevose box to open at midnight on Monday and there’s maybe thirty trawlers south of us now, from Belgium, Holland and France and other UK ports, I think we’re the only boats from North Devon out here.” (By the way all these boats are fishing legally, within the European common fisheries policy and outside the 12 mile offshore limit.) At 15 metres the two North Devon boats from S & P fish are also amongst the smallest, many of the trawlers out there with them are beam trawlers: anything from 24 to 40 metres in length. Paul added “it’s one of the best hauls I’ve had for thirty years. But with this crazy number of boats it could be game over, very quickly.” Meanwhile the Ray box, off the North Devon coast, set up voluntarily by North Devon fishermen to protect the spawning grounds and brood stock of various ray species is still closed.
Don’t worry Boat Stories is not going to get stuck into European fishing policy (we have six films to get on and make) but we are genuinely interested in any boat stories happening off the coast – and what it is like for local fishermen and fish.
RSS Feed
