Crystal Sea Trawling Blog

We sailed on thursday evening as the gale from the north west was starting to ease, we didn't go to far only a couple of hours off, as the forecast for saturday was poor again.

We managed to get four hauls in, the first haul was not so good as there was still a large swell running when we shot, but this eased and by the secound tow we had far better weather and the swell had droped.The fishing wasn't to bad for the next two hauls with a few cuttles starting to show along with a nice bit of monk and a few haddocks.

By friday afternoon the wind had freshened hard from the northwest and the swell had started to make from the west quickly again. We got one more haul in towing with the weather, then by the early hours of saturday morning we got the gear aboard and headed back to Newlyn.

We are hoping to sail again later today, the weather for the week is still looking unsettled, but we should be able to push through until thursday. Fridays catch will be at PTA on mondays market and if all goes well we can get a few more days in and land again later in the week.

The cuttles are moving west quick now, so we may have to dig out the old black boxes, so lets hope the weather settles down for a few weeks and turns cold so we can get out to fish them. We have also been seeing a few anchovies recently in our catch, but we are seeing them in the guts of the fish we are catching. But their must be a few around if the fish are feeding on them, it was mainly the whittings and the hake's that had been eating them, these fish are quite strong preditors and the slow moving anchovies probibly made for a tasty meal.

I have sited the misssing gull's this week! they were following the coasters at night going up and down the traffic seperation scheem off lands end, using the lights at night to help them feed off the fish that is plentiful near the surface. Maybe the crafty gull's have been on the Anchovies for a few weeks, but thet managed to keep their lucky find quiet.