Crystal Sea Trawling Blog

We arrived back in Newlyn last night after a 5day trip away to the south of Newlyn by 30-40miles, the trip started off slack for the first couple of days, then we moved out deeper and we got in on some good fishing. We were having a good mix of fish with some good hauls of haddocks and a steady basket of monk tails a haul, with a few megs and a sprinkling of other fish.

The weather was finemost of the trip as well, which is very welcome for the time of year, but the nights were cold and we had to get our wooly hats out for the first time this autumn.

With the absence of my freinds the seagulls, we were joined all week by a very large flock of gannets, with many of them being made up of young gannets who were out to learne the rope's. I have to admit it was quite comical at times watching them imatate their parents amazing diving techniques. We seen many belly flops and splash downs as they bailed out of a dive, but by the end of the week they were getting the hang of it. The young gannets are quite easy to spot as they have a blackish grey plume, which is quite a contrast to their parents white with a cream cap on their head. I quite like the gannets, they are a noisy bunch they sound like a group of drunken yobs turning up to a party everytime we go to haul, but once they have had their feed they head off to rest up somewhere and we don't have them hanging around messing up the boat all day long like the seagulls do.

Alec has the boat away this trip and he has headed off to the southwest again as we left good fishing there before we came in and the weather is remaining settled for a few days which is a bonus.