Crystal Sea Trawling Blog

We have been busy since we left Tom's boatyard over 2weeks ago, the weather has been good and we have been able to put a few trips together.

 We got off to a good start with 2 good trips off in the deeper water to the southwest of the scillies, there has been a good run of haddocks on the grounds as well as some lovely sized megs and monks to go with it.

The area we are working goes down to 75 fathom which is 15fathom deeper than our usual grounds, you start to see deeper water species below 65fathom and we have had a few ourselves. We are seeing the odd greater forbeard(scoth hake as they have a tarten look to their skin) and we also had a six gilled shark.

These sharks are scavengers and have a depth range from 60fathom right down to the abyss, as you can see from the pictures they have large gill fins for gliding, but a small dorsell fin, they also have six gills each side of their bodies, hence the name.

This one was dead when he was caught, so we took him in so that the scientists could have alook at him.

 He had bad breath! (not jim, the shark)

We don't see many yatchs out this way as we are off the usual shipping lanes and a long way from the scillies, but we did see the odd one or two who are big enough and brave enough to cross the Atlantic.

not enough of  a breeze to sail he was using his engine.

 One fine afternoon I picked up a fast moving target  and could see an unusual shape in the water making plenty off wash, it was a nuclear submarine passing us by 3/4 of a mile making a good speed.

We finished our first couple of trips and we stopped for a day to go through the nets and measure our bridles we also had a few engine jobs to do, Alec has the boat away this trip and I have a trip off at last, its been a busy mounth.

Al is away to the southwest again and the fishing has been good so far, the weather is more unsettled this week but he should push through to land on thursday for fridays market if all's well.