Sometimes it's not very nice, but sometimes it is, because like, sometimes you miss him
when he's out to see, and when he's in, but sometimes he's out for like a really
long time and you're like you've missed him long, sometimes he's not in, sometimes he
goes out one day and then he comes in the following night, so sort of weird in a way.
It's difficult at times, it's difficult, I mean it's hard, it's hard work when the weather's
poor and it's cold and there's not a lot of fish and you know you've got bills and you think you know why do I do this job?
I must be insane, but other times you can be out there and the ocean can be like milk and it's a beautiful day
and the fishing is very good and there's no better job in a row because there is, I mean the draw
for it, for me when I was a young man is the freedom of it, nobody tells you, you know, be there in
Arneglau or be there in Tenneglau or you're not in an office, so the actual freedom of it and it's the hunt,
you know, we're still hunters at the end of the day and there's very very few of us left in any form,
so we are maybe the last of those, so there is still a draw there for me, even though I've been doing it for many years.
Well, since the Second World War obviously there wasn't any fishing for several years and when they came back
and they started to fish in the early 50s, there was an abundance of fish everywhere, there were fish
in North Sea, you know, right down to the coast of France and across the island and really what happened was
that too many fishing vessels were built where big companies saw there was a big profit to be made
and then they built fleets, hundreds and hundreds of trawlers and different methods of fishing, you know,
crab-crabbing and persaining and so on and really from the late 50s, early 60s until the middle 80s,
which is obviously quite some time, it was overfished, there were too many boats chasing too few fish in the end,
you know, for 15 years it was boom time, everybody got rich, not so much the fishermen but the people who owned the boats
and by the late 80s there was a massive decline in the fish stocks, therefore many of the boats were just tied up and scrapped
and really since then until now there's been two decommissioning schemes where the government have actually paid
fishermen who no longer want it to get out so they've been chopped up, boats have been chopped but that benchmark has been reached
and I think now, well I see it myself, you know, I'm out there sort of all the time and the fish stocks are increasing,
there are so few boats now that there isn't the actual catching capacity left to damage the reproduction of the fish
so hopefully we're on a win-win situation now.
Well quotas, as you said, are a very complex issue because they stretch all around the country, you know, Scotland,
Denny's Coast, South Coast, Royal Lake Tomorrowland and back up to Scotland and basically what they've tried to do
is really cut the ocean up into squares so you have a massive square of ocean which is called an area, you know, one, two, three or four
and you're allocated a quota so you can go into that square and catch an allocated amount of fish
but the problem with that being that fish move, you know, fish don't know what square is so you could catch a certain amount of fish there
for a couple of months of the year and they can be abundant and then a month later it can be empty
because the fish has got a tail and it will follow food so they're not a good system and they are actually proving now
that in the last couple of years that they might abolish this because they know it doesn't work
so, you know, they're not really a good thing and nearly now I think sort of will be discarded
If we catch too much fish, we have to throw it back, they're dead, you know, the mortality rate has probably been 99%
so you're throwing away a good source of food really
so it is pointless but again, you know, that is hopefully coming to an end because the EU and Brussels where all the rules are made
for fishing industry acknowledge that there is more fish in the UK waters now and it has been for quite some time
and the amount of fish being discarded is more or less 50% of what we actually catch
so by 2013 hopefully most discards will be abolished
so it's taken 13 years to realise that fishermen have told them this for a decade
but they are actually coming around to our way of thinking so again, I positive note
If they get rid of the quotas as they stand, I'll go back to the non-discards
because at the moment on my boat, I'm allocating for an example 15 tonnes of Pollock per month
If I caught my 15 tonnes in four days, the rest of the month I'll have to throw it all back over the side
so that's discarded and that is my quota so when they stop the scouts, they'll say okay you've got 30 tonnes
but I've got a month to catch it, that would be the same but I'll be allowed to catch an extra 15 tonnes
so what I would do then, rather than staying in that place, continuing to catch a Pollock
I would move to a place where there wasn't any, because that's possible to do, to a degree
and then I could fish more successfully in different areas without dumping fish
so the quota system as it stands now will be hopefully certainly diluted and maybe abolished
Finally life can be difficult being a fisherman but the children were born and grew up with me doing it
so they used to be me being away for periods, when I first started doing it there was no mobile phones
I'd go away for 10 days and I'd be gone but now it is slightly easier because you've got a phone
I can pick it up and how you're doing it and so on and so forth
but it's something you get used to and of course my wife is used to it, it was difficult at first
but it's something you run into
I do think the fishing industry as it stands now, in the UK anyway at least
there are so few boats left in comparison to what it was 20 years ago
and there's a lot of fishing to see, regardless of what Mr Greenpeace says or WWF
because I see it every day, I see millions of properties, I see turtles, I see all this stuff going on, it is alive
so number one there's no lack of fish
number two I think our biggest problem we'll have is being allowed to catch it
because there's a lot of people out there, a couple of them I just mentioned
who don't want the fishing industry at all
but I don't think that, I think it will be a fishing industry but it will be very regulated
as we all know but I think it will be more regulated
and I think if you could survive all that, it's a good living to be had
and it's an honourable living to do
today's sort of windbreak is nothing, we didn't break anything, which is always a plus when you're doing that job
we didn't catch a pile of fish but we caught enough to pay for the fuel and the food
and wages for the crew
so the outside of it is a plus
all fishermen want more fish and tomorrow I shall get more
you
