This Fishing Life: Part V

 

Pelagic fishing (mid-water trawling)

I can’t now remember which of our vessels dipped a mid-water trawl first. But it was certainly before we acquired the Vig. And although I don’t remember it Carmania certainly tried it because I do remember an article in the Plymouth evening paper from that time proclaiming the “largest catch of Pilchard for “x” years landed by Plymouth trawler Carmania.” That was 17 tons if my memory is correct. And of course several of our vessels had a go at the Sprat fishery. So we must have bought trawls for them as we didn't make them, as we did with the bottom trawls; presumably from Bridport Gundry, the netting and fishing supplies company of that town. (Cosalt had a small outlet in Quay Road, and Mashford and Coads Brothers had retail outlets for clothing, gloves, twine and cordage, etc. on the Barbican. But Bridport Gundry were the go-to for trawls and bulk netting.) Perhaps the trips up to Bridport were when we bought the Sprat nets, and later mid-water trawls for Pilchard.

Who remembers Shippam’s Fish Paste; in those little round jars? They were based in Newlyn of course. Once-upon-a-time the west country was synonymous with the Pilchard fishery. But by our time Shippam's was no more. And the fishery had gone. We started to see signs of them again when towing or steaming at night. Obviously not in the great shoals that used to be drift-net fished for them by boats from all along the south coast. But when we came to fish on these marks we found that the Pilchard were invariably mixed with mackerel, for which there was a very limited market for trawl caught fish. I remember steaming for twenty minutes over a shoal off the back of the ‘Stone one night, and hesitating to shoot for fear of getting a mixed bag. (Not only would tons of a mixed Mackerel and Pilchard bag take ages to hand sort, it would rob us of the time to get tons of “clean” fish from another tow.) With the sophistication of our sounders in those days (greyscale only) we talked of “pepper and salt” shoals, and trying to get a nice clear pepper mark, indicating clean Pilchard.

About this time, because several of the Brixham boats were also having the same problem, the BTF (Brixham and Torbay Fish Co-operative) were beginning to find continental buyers for the trawl-caught mackerel, so we switched our attention (and our agents) to the mackerel. (There had long been a strong fishery for all the tossers (small motor-fishing vessels) from all the west Channel ports to fish for mackerel in the winter with hand-lines. This was always considered a superior quality fish to the trawled mackerel. And they should never have been constrained by the quotas later introduced for bulk-caught mackerel.)

So, was it some time in ‘76 that I took a hired pick-up up to drive to Fishguard to collect a giant 18 x 20 fathom Engel trawl that we had purchased from Germany? It was enormous to my eyes. It must have weighed a ton, just the bare net. When we came to rig a lazy-decky to it (clipped to the wing end and stretching back to the choker on the cod end – 6” nylon) we found it was 100 fathom (200m) long! Once, when I had smashed it on a pinnacle of rock, we brought it ashore and laid it out to mend across the disused car park of Queen Ann Battery at Cattedown and it covered most of it. The "mouth" would have covered a tennis court, with about 100 metres of reinforced “stocking” that would hold almost 100 tons of fish in one go. The “bag” (cod end) was about 15 ft. long, from cod-end-clip to choker, and every time we lifted it aboard full of fish it was another 1¼ tons of fish in the hold. Unlike the bottom trawls, which were made of polyethylene twine, pelagic trawls are made of nylon twine which doesn’t stretch and sinks. The “foot-rope” doesn’t have any chafing gear on it and relies on heavy weights suspended off the wing-ends to sink it, and the headline probably only has an aluminium buoy at each wing end, but it is towed in-line with the top of the “doors”. And although the headline and foot-rope are 20 fathom long, the net would open to about 15 f. x 12 f. (30m x 24m) due to the “catenary” of the water drag. (The doors were probably fishing at about 40 f. (80m) width.) We rigged a “pocket” of net in the headline into which we inserted an echo-sounder transducer (the transmitting and receiving part of an echo-sounder) which was connected back to the vessel by a long cable mounted on a hand-wound drum on the after-deck, in turn connected to the display cabinet in the wheelhouse. In theory this showed us the height of the headline off the bottom, the foot-rope below (the height of opening), and hopefully, any fish passing into the trawl.

The general rig of a mid-water trawl. Separate bridles off the top and bottom of the doors to the wing-ends. Heavy weights on the lower wings, and floats on the top wings. Funnel shaped mouth and a long, parrallel-sided "stocking".

 

An enlargement of the rig. The headline transducer would have gone into a pocket in the centre of the headline. The netting in the mouth of the trawl would have been about 60cms. mesh, gradually decreasing down to about 6cms. in the stocking and cod end. But over the lower end of the stocking and the cod end there would be a heavy gauge twine over-bag of about 10cms. mesh to take the weight of the fish as the bag was lifted out of the water.

 

About ‘72 or ‘73 my father had died, and my mother sold up in Wallasey on the Wirral and moved to a house she bought on Cattedown Road. Which made her very handy to Guy’s Quay, when we moved over there. She spent increasing amounts of time calling on us there, and eventually took on the role of victualling the Vig. Not only that, she provided us with prepared meals for the week. So whenever we sailed, Monday morning for scalloping, or after lunch on Sunday for mackerel, one of us (and by then that included the crew) would call round to Mum’s to pick up all the dishes she had prepared and stores for the week. The crew of the Vig included a cook among the six of us, most of whom had by now been with us for several years. Only the cook wasn’t considered a “fisherman”, so didn’t take watches, but generally, if the crew was on deck the cook mucked in. We ended up with a chap from Stoke Climsland, near me, who “volunteered” to cook, having enjoyed some angling trips to sea with some friends. Henry (Doc) Penhorwood was older than me and had been a slaughterman among other things. So he travelled with me, and because he was always helpful and willing on deck, as well as keeping everyone fed and watered, the crew gave him a share of both the catch and the stocker. Apart from me and Henry the rest of the crew were all Plymouth lads. Although on some occasions we ended up with “hands” who ‘didn’t have a home’ or from further away. So when the Vig was against the wall she was usually locked up.

In the early hours one night I was woken by the police on the phone asking if I was the owner of a fishing boat called Vigilance. They went on to tell me that she had capsized at her moorings in Sutton Harbour, and that a crew member had to be rescued. That sounded alarming! As far as I knew, she wasn’t on a mooring, so couldn’t “capsize”. She was moored alongside the wall at Guy’s Quay. (Vessels lying alongside where they will take the bottom at low water are trimmed to lean into the “wall”, rather than leave it to chance, when they might lean out and rest on their moorings. On the Vig we had about 10 forty-gallon oil drums which we topped up with the deck hose to make sure she leaned in.) But we had let a new deck-hand staying aboard over the weekend, so I guessed it must have been him who had raised the alarm and been rescued. In fact, we had failed to fill the barrels and the Vig had fallen out on to her bilge. This must have felt alarming on a dead ship in the middle of the night. And the deck-hand wouldn’t have been able to reach a ladder set into the quayside to climb ashore. He wouldn’t have known also that lying on her bilge on a level bottom, the Vig wouldn’t have flooded when the tide came in. (Oh the days before mobile phones!)

I once ended up aboard the Vig in a rather similar situation. Unusually we had caught about 20 tons of Herring. It was worth about £200/ton, compared with the Mackerel at about £75/ton. So we were anxious to get on to the market early. But on the way in I picked up a call from another Plymouth trawler (who’s skipper had at times worked for us) to say he was tail-piped (had a rope round his prop), and could I give him a tow back to Plymouth. I couldn’t refuse. But he drew a lot less than me, and I was pushing my luck with the tide anyway, into Sutton Harbour. So after bringing him alongside for a breast tow and pushing him towards the fish quay, I turned for Guy’s Quay and ran aground. And as the tide went out I went down on my bilge. Another vessel must have taken all the crew off (to their homes) and I remained aboard and turned in to await the next tide. I was woken by shouts from the shore, anxious for me to bring her alongside to unload, before any other boats got in before us.

We had to learn this new game fast. None of us had any idea. But by luck, help from some of the Brixham skippers who’d got a season’s start on us, and trial and error we caught up fast. We’d long since got rid of the wooden life-boat on the after deck, and replaced it with life-rafts in their containers strapped down on the foredeck and casing. But Mick and Ian had decided she needed more ballast down aft. So they extracted all the pig iron from the aft peak and poured 3 tons of ready-mix concrete down there. They then made and fitted what we called a pram-handle to the stern rail. If you can imagine a pram handle made of 10” steel pipe, scaled up to fit the cruiser-stern of a boat, tightly fitting the stern, over which we could shoot and retrieve trawls. And on the after deck a platform built at rail height, on which was mounted a net drum. This was originally powered by whipping drums, but Mick soon fitted a hydraulic pump to power it. Nowadays it would all be visible on a video link, but we made do with a tannoy connection, a 500 watt halogen lamp up the after mast, and wing-mirrors from a car in the wheelhouse! (Was it the same hydraulic pump that powered the power steering as well? ) Powered  steering was a huge improvement. Finger-tip control, from a hand-held remote, and auto-pilot which held whatever course we set. No more sixteen turns winding a 4 ft. wheel from hard-a-port to hard-a -starboard. I could stand at the wing of the bridge and watch the stern swing clear or adjust the helm to suit.

Mike Walker working on the gear, wound on the net drum mounted on the raised after-deck. Note the coarse mesh of the overbag. The heavy nylon rope is the 200m. lazy decky.

 

We also constructed and rigged two more derricks, forward and aft of the after starboard gallows, and a lightweight landing derrick on the mainmast above the lifting derrick. This enabled us to top one derrick over the hold hatch and one over the hopper or pallet ashore for landing either boxes, sacks, or brails of fish. But this method required two hands on whipping drums for each derrick. The crew became very skilled at this methods of landing, and it was very efficient.

WHEELHOUSE TECH.

Nowadays the technology in the wheelhouse is probably worth as much as the boat, but then it was relatively modest. Communications were important. All vessels had short-wave radios with which they listened constantly on the emergency channel. But as soon as one contacted another vessel they would switch to a working channel. (Some of us, me included, rigged radios at home, and made arrangements to call home at certain times and on a predetermined channel. But it was illegal, and, being public, a bit fraught. I don’t know if Mary got much comfort out of it. If we came in for weather the first thing I did was to find a phone box ashore and phone home, knowing that Mary would be listening to the wind!) But VHF radios were fast coming in, and most vessels now had them. The Karen had a SW radio and an echo-sounder apart from the Decca for navigation. But the radio was constantly on, and we kept an ear to all that was going on. No constant background Radio 2 in those days. We obviously kept in touch with the other vessels in the fleet and compared catches. But we had mates on other boats that we chatted to as well. But it was only at night, on long tows that the language became more sociable. By day it was largely business. And of course, when we were pelagic fishing we were in touch with our agents as soon as we had anything to tell them.

Nowadays they have automatic ship recognition, and all vessels are constantly tracked, so another set of lights could be recognised, which made communications easier. You knew who it was heading straight for you, and you could give them a shout.

It wasn’t until the Vig that we had a Kelvin Hughes radar, bought second-hand ,which was a bit clunky, but we could see the coast, but it was not of very high definition, so it would pick up fishing boat s well enough, but probably not a dinghy. We later swapped this for a Furuno which was a big improvement. I don’t remember any of our other vessels having a radar. (Decca navigation was so accurate, usually, that I made up a chart of our passage from Penlee Point into Sutton Harbour, and in foggy weather I used this to navigate home. It was accurate enough to show whether we were lying against the wall or outside another vessel!) But radar is now used to pick up buoys marking the other end of one’s gear as well as for navigation.

Echo-sounders have gone from very simple illustration of the depth of water, at best on a monochrome screen, to highly sophisticated full colour screens, which not only show the bottom, and what sort of nature it is, but any fish between the vessel and the sea bed. Sonars do a similar thing, but instead of looking straight down to the bottom, they can search around the vessel, in the same manner as a radar does above the water. The Vig was the only one of our vessels to ever be fitted with sonar, and that was, by today’s standards, a very simple one. We could search, in a fashion, for fish ahead or to one side over a distance of about 100m. But the signal was very dependant on sea-state, and didn't work very well at cruising speed. But it added enormously to the ability to follow a shoal it or the sounder had picked up. (When I look at the fishing programmes on the TV now and see the screen presentation and the range over which they are working I am amazed. How can they miss? But of course, that is the problem. They are now too good at it, and the stock is being wiped out!)

We also used an echo-sounder fitted to the headline of the big Engel trawl, but I’ve covered that in the rigging of the mid-water trawls.

On the Vig we fitted a “tannoy” system with the base in the wheelhouse, and speakers on the after-deck for working the net drum, and on the winch just forward and below the wheelhouse. At least I had some communication other than yelling! Nowadays everything would also be visible on CCTV. Best I could do was a wing-mirror looking aft from the bridge on both sides! Otherwise it was leaning out of the bridge windows, or peering back through the doors on each wing of the bridge out on to the casing. All the winch controls were on the winch, under the canopy of the wheel-house.

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Mackerel fishing was a night fishing occupation (the shoals become too tightly packed and mobile by day), so our week started after lunch on a Sunday. We sailed out of the pier-heads of Sutton Harbour when all the Sunday strollers were about, and the Sound was full of pleasure boats. I would hand over the watch as soon as we cleared the breakwater, and give instructions to call me when it got dark, and set a general direction to head for. The crew taking over would chat on the radio to gain an inkling of where fish were last seen, and would be watching the sounder as they steamed.

For want of anywhere specific to head for we would probably steam off to the back of the Eddystone, about 15 miles out, and then head west. Times changed. Sometimes we would come across fish immediately, but at others we may have to steam for a couple of hours searching. I’ve steamed all night, to the Scillies and back up to Start Bay and found nothing, but that was rare. Generally we were on to something within a couple of hours. I would take over as soon as it got dark. Then with auto-pilot set it was a case of watching the sounder and the sonar, and listening to the chatter. Constant mugs of tea; many cigarettes. And often with one or more crew looking over my shoulder in the darkened ship, their faces lit up by the glowing screens. But usually, if you weren’t on watch you got your head down. And looking around. A vessel putting all its deck lights on was shooting. There was no way you could disguise that!

When we found fish we would mark it on the track plotter and steam up-wind of it for 10 minutes, having roused the crew, turned downwind, and shut down to slow ahead. Then the lights would go on, which was signal enough for the crew to silently go about their jobs. With an accustomed crew who knew the drill, there was hardly a word spoken. Just a nod or a wave now and again and it all went like clockwork (usually). The cod end would be paid away, the net drum paid away, and soon the weight of the gear in the water was enough to pull it all off the drum. Wing ends clipped to the bridles in the blocks, weights lifted outboard, and headline transducer clipped on, and bridles away. Doors clipped to warps, lifted and released, and then warps away, and the winch-man calling the marks on the warps as they were paid away, until the towing length I’d given them would be reached and the brakes applied, and the drums dogged back in. My only part was to determine the towing length, keep an eye on the crew and the gear, and pay off the headline transducer cable from its drum aft on the casing. (I could do that still in my slippers if it was dry.) But I had to keep track of where we were in relation to the fish. The big danger was in running down the fish before we’d settled the gear, or missing the shoal altogether. Slow ahead down-wind for 20 minutes was supposed to be offset by the steam upwind at full throttle for 10 mins. But as soon as the doors entered the water the throttle went up to towing speed, about 90% throttle, and you were committed. One assumed the fish were stemming the tide (to feed), but the vessel was subject to the same tide, but how much did the windage push us away from the fish track? And if we approached the fish too closely with all our deck lights still on we would spook the shoal and it would break up. Quiet efficiency covered up a lot of anxiety. But I admired the competency of the crews we had. We valued the old hands we gathered along the way.

Early on with the Vig when we started mid-water trawling, we were worried about catching more than we could handle. Ideally we would have liked to tow until we had caught, say, 50 tons and then hauled. As we became more confident and improvements to the gear and rig were made, that probably crept up to about 70 tons. But if we’d bagged 100 tons in one shot, which I’m sure the net would have held, we were worried that we would either crack-off the stocking, or burst it when trying to handle it alongside. Initially we had no idea of what we were catching, or even if we were catching. It was a little while before we hit on the idea of a headline transducer, with which we could see if any fish was going into the trawl. As the trawl filled up, so it became harder to tow it. But we were only moving at about 2 or 3 knots anyway, so it was difficult to judge one’s speed. What we needed was a giant dynamometer on the warps to read out the load on them. (When we’d completed the fitting of the Kort nozzle to the prop we had been able to borrow/hire a dynamometer from the ship-builders Phillips of Dartmouth. This was like a giant clock- type spring balance. We made up a bridle which we attached to one of the giant admiralty mooring buoys out in the Sound, shackled this to one side of the dynamometer, the warps to the other, and then wound up to 90% throttle, which is what we usually towed at. So it was a standing pull. The buoy almost disappeared under water, but I think we got an 8.1 ton bollard pull. But we’d never measured it before we fitted the nozzle, so I don’t know what it told us. The Phillip’s rep, who we were friendly with, told us that was pretty good.) But Mick and Ian had worked out that the exhaust temperature would rise as the load came on, but for that we would need pyrometers fitted to the exhausts on the engine. But meanwhile we’d hit on the idea of the headline transducer, and had fitted that, with a cable drum mounted at the after end of the casing to pay out the cable over the top of the net drum. (That could be handled by me from the bridge.) So now, in theory at least, we would see fish going into the trawl. And it worked. (I see nowadays they have sensors fitted at intervals along the stocking to see how much the net is holding. ) We could see the trawl opening, the height of the headline from the bottom (or more importantly, the clearance between the foot-rope and the bottom, and indeed, the shadow of fish passing into the mouth of the trawl. But more importantly, it showed us the mouth of the trawl closing up as the weight came on to the stocking. (We were drowning the mackerel as we confined them, so they became a deadweight. But Pilchard and Herring have swim bladders, so when we raised them towards the surface when hauling, the swim bladders swelled, so the whole stocking floated. Whereas with mackerel it was trying to sink all the time.) It also showed us that there was about a fathom (6 feet) “scare” reaction to the net. Fish were scared off the net to a distance of 6 feet. We could see it on the underside of the headline, and above and below the foot-rope. (Which means that a trawl that only opens to 12 feet won’t catch any fish at all! So our (technically) 18 x 20 fathom (108ft x 120ft) trawl was only fishing 16 x 18 fathom.) But this scare factor also explains why the net in the mouth of a trawl is as big as 24” mesh, but it still shepherds the fish down into the stocking, and it is only down there that the mesh size needs to be small enough to contain the fish. The scare factor also explains why the gear starts fishing at the doors; the fish are shepherded by the doors and the bridles towards the net, and the doors are probably fishing at 60 fathom (120m) apart. So the effective fishing area is actually far greater than the mouth of the trawl. But still we could miss the fish. (The effect of lights would be far greater than a 2m scare of the pressure wave from a wire or a net, and who knows what the effect of sound is on a shoal of fish. Sound propagates extremely well in water.)

We became extremely slick at shooting and hauling, but it was an anxious time, having got the gear away, to wait until we got back to where the marks had been. Early on, we were relying entirely on the one sounder. Then came the headline transducer, and finally the sonar. None of it reduced the anxiety. Half the crew would be looking over my shoulder in silence (those who hadn’t gone to the galley for a hot drink. No alcohol aboard! And the cook would have brought a drink up to me. The increased technology made us more efficient at making the small alterations necessary to get on to the fish, if it was still there. But it was still possible to miss it entirely.

Having passed through the shoal the decision then had to be made as to whether we should come round and have another swipe at it. In theory we had blasted a great hole in the shoal. Would it come back together again? It would take us at least 20 minutes to come round 180º without dumping the gear on the bottom or turning it over. (Later we hauled the inside warp 10 fathom to help us come round quicker.) Where would it have moved to? Our sonar only covered about 200m effectively, on either side, and ahead. I tried to think like a fish! (I might have some advantage there over the rest of you!) Sometimes we were lucky. Others not so. And all the while watched over in silence by some of the crew.

I don’t think we ever made more than two passes. Sometimes it was obvious that one was sufficient. Let’s assumes there is a shoal of 100 tons of fish. We tow through it and catch 50 tons if we are lucky. We turn to have another swipe, but there is only 50 tons left, and they are flighty or broken up. Whatever, the second swipe will only catch, say 20 tons. So if we take another swipe, and another half hour, we might get another 5 tons. Is it worth it? Why not haul and go off to look for another 50 ton? The law of diminishing returns kicks in very quickly when it comes to a Mackerel shoal. I don’t think we ever went back for a third swipe.

As soon as we were ready to haul I’d start turning down wind if we were not already heading that way. The trawl came aboard easier with a following sea, and that meant it was safer for the crew. It was a well practised drill, and proceeded in almost silence among the crew. An occasional shout or a wave was all that was needed. First up the doors. Then the bridles, and the weights on the wing ends lifted in-board, and the lazy legs from the net drum attached to the wings, and the net started winding aboard. By now we would have some idea of our luck. The tension on the netting would tell us how much weight was in the stocking. If it was pilchard or herring, of course, the bag would be floating in a long sausage, but mackerel soon sink, and although they would initially float up, we had to be quick before the dead-weight of them sank all the gear. As soon as we started hauling I would have cut the engine back to slow ahead, so for a while all the gear streamed out astern.

When the wing-ends came aboard we detached the lazy-decky, and started hauling the slack, but when we started drying-up fish on the drum we would pass a strop round the stocking, and we would pass the weight of the gear to the after derrick, when I would swing broadside to the sea and knock out of gear. (100 tons of fish in a long tube of net – the stocking- doesn’t weigh 100 tons when it is in the water. But mackerel naturally sinks when it is in a net, and the vessel rolls, so although we aren’t hanging 100 tons over the side, we have a considerable weight hanging off the side of the vessel. We would probably have two or three bights of net with fish in, suspended on 6” nylon strops passed round the stocking. We preferred not to catch 100 tons in the net in one go.) While we were hauling I would go out onto the after deck to wind the headline transducer cable in, and that job finished when one of the crew on the net drum would unclip the transducer and hand it up to me for safe stowage. So my work was done. I would hang about until the first bag had been hauled, to have a look at the catch and then switch off the auto-pilot alarm, and turn in. The crew could manage quite well without me, and I could get some sleep while they hauled it all aboard. (I had to catch sleep whenever I could. I would have been on watch for several hours searching, probably, and as soon as we were ready to go again I would be on watch until we had found and shot again. The crew would only have to be up for shooting, hauling and bagging off.

But I would lie in my bunk having difficulty going off when every 3 minutes or so there would be a heavy thump as another 1¼ ton of fish would hit the deck.

Bagging-off. The bag has just been emptied and one of the crew is hammering home the Holland clip to close the cod end again. Henry Penhorwood pushes the fish towards the deck scuttle. Colin Baker starts drying-up the stocking on the after derrick to force the fishs back down into the stocking when it is lowered away.

 

Bagging off II. The same scene, but looks like Chris Deacon in the oilskins. Henry is throwing a damaged fish overboard.

Eventually someone would give me a shout, and we would let all the strops go and start steaming again to wind the now empty gear back on to the drum, to start another search. The cook would have been handing round hot drinks while the crew were bagging off, and he would bring me a drink when I got up. When all was safely stowed again all the lights would be doused, and off we would go, looking and listening; scanning for fish and listening to the conversations on the radio. This assumes of course that there was still dark left, and that we were not full. With a big catch we might well run well into daylight before we got it all aboard, and Mick let me know the tally. Whatever, when daylight came it was time to head for home, regardless of how much we had, unless it was not worth landing. Sometimes it was worth sacrificing bulk for being first on the market, but generally we fished until daylight unless we had a reasonable first shot. With anything over about 30 tons we would head for home. But a lot depended on the market and our agents, and how many other boats were out. And the agents determined where we should go. If the market still wanted fresh fish we would race to get a 4 stone sample into the office, because generally boats were landed in the order in which they returned to port. So by delaying and hoping to catch more, we were obviously loosing our turn, and the possibility that the fresh market that day had been satisfied. So then the catch would go into bulk lorries and hauled all the way up to Grimsby for fish meal! At £15/ton, instead of boxed and onto a continental lorry for France or Spain at £75/ton. So you were taking a chance to try to maximise the catch.

 

Ready to start pumping it ashore into a de-waterer. The fish-rom is full to the hatch, and there is probably about 30 tons lying in the deck pounds. Mike Walker (L) and Chris Deacon (R).

Well down by the bow. Entering Millbay Dock with about 130 tons aboard. (Obviously before we had rigged for scalloping.)

But there were ominous signs at sea. Initially when we started pelagic fishing there were fewer than half a dozen Brixham boats already having a go, and I think we were the only Plymouth boats. And although one or two more Brixham boats joined in, it was still only DAM Trawlers from Plymouth, and that quickly came down to just the Vigilance. But our success attracted the gulls; well, not exactly. Ireland and Scotland had quite substantial pelagic fishing fleets for Herring and Mackerel. But they had become too successful and had virtually wiped out their Herring and Mackerel stocks in the North Sea, The Minches, and off Ireland. This was a mixed fleet of trawlers and Purse-seiners. As I’ve said, trawling through shoals of fish isn’t very efficient, in so far as most of the fish, or a high proportion, get away (to breed another day?).

But purse-seining is a different matter. Lets go back to that 100 ton shoal of fish. A purse seine is basically a wall of net about 60m deep and 400m long, with floats along the top, and heavy wire strops on the bottom through which the “purse” wire runs. So top to bottom, and the net is shot around the complete shoal, until the other end is picked up again. So now a shoal is completely surrounded by net. Every last fish of that 100 tons. And then the purse is drawn closed, and the fish is in a bowl of net. Then the net is “dried-up” over the net rollers until there is only a small bowl of net with the fish packed tightly into it. Then a fish pump is lowered into this mass of fish and it is pumped aboard. Every last one of those 100 tons. Not a single fish left to breed again, or carry the memory of that shoal to turn up here at this time of year to feed or breed again next year! It’s absolutely lethal. But absolutely efficient! But having pumped, say, a ton aboard and it’s not very good quality – too many small fish, or mixed – the Skipper might decide it’s not worth spoiling the quality of what he has already, or may catch again. So sometimes the whole lot is “slipped”, to fall to the bottom as dead fish. Because once Mackerel is constrained tightly like this they “drown”. They have to be able to keep swimming to aerate their gills. When you are bottom trawling and you run across one of these heaps of fish you know by the smell before you ever reach the net that it is something dead! So 100 tons of dead fish. But pursers can quite easily cope with 400 or 500 tons of fish in a shot. It is so efficient that wherever pursers prosecute a fishery they will wipe it out. The investment in these vessels is huge, not least in their fish-finding technology. But the returns are high as long as stocks last. But they are free to sail the oceans of the world looking for fish, so they are not too concerned if they wipe out a stock on the English Channel. But that isn’t so good for local fishermen. Or a local stock!

So it was soon obvious to us that our time was limited. The pursers had refrigerated sea-water holds for their fish, so although they were “holding” considerable quantities of fish, the quality was maintained. Whereas, although we could flood our holds it wouldn’t have been safe, so our fish soon became inferior to purse caught fish. So they would command the fresh market and more and more of ours was going for fish meal. In the early years about 70% of our fish went for fresh at about £75/ton, and the remaining 30% for fish meal at £15/ton. But towards the end those figures had been reversed. So 70% of what we caught was being hauled up to Grimsby to a fish-meal plant. And our income was badly hit. On one occasion we’d caught about 80 tons of good fish, and I was making my way back to Plymouth with it while waiting for an answer from the office about what to do with it. Eventually, as I neared Plymouth I was told the best they could offer me was a Bulgarian reefer anchored off Falmouth. So I turned about and steamed west for three hours, and waited another couple of hours to pull alongside to be pumped. That I think was the writing on the wall for us.

For some while it had been just the Vigilance and our faithful crew, with Mick and me at sea, and Ian ashore with DAM Trawlers. That was going great guns. Not only was it keeping us going, it was servicing a good deal of the local fleet and now several of the visiting Scottish boats.

One of the problems we faced with bulk fish was an efficient method of unloading it. There was too much to box it at sea, so it arrived alongside as bulk fish in the hold (and in some cases overflowing on deck on a couple of occasions). So without any form of pump, the hold was flooded and the fish brailed (a large dip-net on a stout frame) out of the hold, about ¾ ton a time into a de-watering chute and hopper, to be released into the 7 or 10 stone plastic fish boxes, for onward transport in articulated lorries. The shore side of it was organised by our agents, Brixham and Torbay Fish. (For a while we used another agent, but that is another story.) But we were responsible for getting it on to the quay. But it was slow and arduous work for a couple of hands in the hold trying to scoop up he fish, and two hands on deck on the whipping-drums lifting the brail ashore.

But while all this was going on, the Scottish and Irish vessels had brought in their own agents, and although they initially used Sutton Harbour, they quickly established dockside and storage facilities at Millbay docks. Their vessels often had their own pumping facilities, so weren’t constricted by brailing fish ashore. We looked on in envy. But, ever resourceful, I don’t know whether it was Mick or Ian, we bought the engine and chassis of a Ready-Mix lorry and built a fish pump on it, and used that for a while before selling it to one of the other agents at Millbay Docks. (Their agent was a bit of a rogue. He agreed to buy the pump if it could pump 20 ton ashore in an hour. So on the day of the trial a bulk lorry was lined up and Chris Deacon and Mike Walker, two of our faithful and long-time crew, worked the pump nozzle in the hold, and pumped for an hour. When the time was up, the agent reckoned we were a bit shy of 20 tons, and he should know because he was sending 20 ton loads up the road every day! But we knew this particular contract driver; while waiting for loads he often came aboard for breakfast! And I’d given him an addressed envelope and a cheque to go over a weighbridge before he left Plymouth, and he posted the weighbridge ticket back to us. When I was able to show the agent that he’d been cheating his boats out of about 5 tons of fish every load he quickly agreed to buy the pump. But I don’t suppose he got his money out of it as the fishery soon dried up.

  Our livelihood depended on being at sea catching fish every night. But we were often left waiting for hours for transport. So our nights were often shortened by hanging round against the wall. If we were boxing the fish we could stack it on pallets on the quay, but bulk fish had to have a lorry there. As soon as we put to sea I would get on the blower to some of my mates to see where the action was. You couldn’t hide it; as soon as you started working on deck all the lights would go on. But you couldn’t see that if it was poor visibility or 50 miles to westward or east. If you were late on the scene you might as well have gone off looking for your own fish. If you were lucky you would find fish on your journey west or east. Usually west. Occasionally I have spent the night cruising down to the Scillies and back up to Start Bay, before finding a shoal of what turned out to be Horse Mackerel (which went to Spain for freezing!) On occasion we even went around the corner (Land’s End), but a lack of any sign or any other boats made me think distance was no help. We even had a run into the Scilly Islands just for a change of scenery, to while away the day, having failed to find anything the night before. (One of my crew, Colin Baker, had for a while been an officer on the Scillonian, so he was able to pilot us in.) But this was later years when fish were harder to find.

We became friendly with was one of the Brixham boats, owned by John Day, and his skipper, Alan ? We even had a trial at pair-trawling with them, but we weren’t very happy about it, so it wasn’t pursued. John Day wasn’t very happy with his dealings with BTF, so he set up his own agency. And he took, as his manager, one of the BTF agents. So in due course we swapped allegiance and John Day Fish at Brixham became our agents. It worked well for a time, but unbeknown to us things weren’t going well behind the scenes, and John went bankrupt. On our last landing we had made £3,500 and I’d bought 3,000 gallons of fuel at Brixham through him for £1,500. So we lost £5,000 from DAM Trawlers. But DAM Engineers had also done about £5,000 worth of work on his boat. So between the two companies John’s failure cost us £10,000. (That would be about 10x more in this day and age! It was a lot of money to us back then.)

But all good things must come to an end. We’d reduced to just Mick and me directing DAM Trawlers, and just the one vessel. With the competition, and the reduction in fish stock we realised that we had probably come to the end of the good days. We could have carried on and fished scallops all year round, or even gone back to bottom trawling, but Mick's heart was now in his hang-gliding school, and I was ready for some home life (?). Our “asset” was the Vigilance, and a fishing boat is probably worth what she can gross in a year, and that was going down. So we decided enough was enough, and we put the Vig on then market.

We almost immediately had an enquiry from Peter de Savery! He sent an ex-North Sea skipper and his mate down to look at the boat and the situation. I don’t think they had a clue about pelagic fishing or scalloping. (Hull and Grimsby crews were ten-a penny: we’d been chucked out of Icelandic waters [rightly so by my reckoning] and our large distant-water fleet was largely tied up against the wall in those ports, and being decommissioned. But their crews were “company men”, and more or less did what they were told. None of the independence that our inshore fleet has, or the knowledge and skills of these skippers.) Did they have a trip to sea with us? Anyway, for better or worse we sold the Vig for £35,000 cash. For some reason the papers had to be signed in an office in Falmouth, and we’d insisted on cash (there was some business of a back-hander to the two Grimsby men, which we defaulted on) and Mick and I hurried through the streets of Falmouth to a branch of our bank, with bundles of notes in a hold-all. The cashier was most perturbed, but we insisted that we did not want to be wandering around with all this loose change in a holdall, while the Nat West untwisted its knickers. So that was the undignified end to This Fishing Life.

(Later news of the Vig was that she’d caught about 15 tons of mackerel one night, and then pumped it to a Bulgarian reefer. But the last we heard was that she had been sold on again! She didn't deserve an ignominious end.)

Finally...

Fishing vessels (trawlers) picked up sufficient quantities of armaments to warrant the Admiralty issuing a booklet which illustrated the shells, bombs, mines that we were likely to come across. With this it was hoped fishermen would have a clue as to what it was, and whether it was likely to be dangerous. Some vessels carried this booklet. Which brings me back to my opening sentence.

As I have said, we bought our first vessel off a Brixham fisherman called Bob Trimble. He was well know to be a bit of a leg-puller. But on this occasion the boot was on the other foot. The story goes like this. He came on the air (short wave radio) one day; “Juno! Juno! Juno! Karen Marie! Are you there Mike?” Silence. “Juno! Juno! Juno! Karen Marie! Are you there Mike?” Again, silence. Now with a hint of urgency/desperation; “Juno! Juno! Juno! This is Karen Marie! Are you there Mike?” Still no answer. Then; “Karen Marie! Karen Marie! Karen Marie! Endeavour! What’s the problem, Bob?” “Oh! Endeavour! Karen Marie! Hullo Tim. Have you got one of those books with the mines in it? We’ve got a mine or a bomb, but I don’t know whether it’s a blank or not.” “Yes, Bob. Just a minute.” Silence for a few seconds, then: “ Right Bob, what does it look like?” “It’s about two foot long with a rounded nose. About ten inches diameter. It’s one of ours. It’s got the Admiralty arrow on it. And a number WD00570. Can you see anything like that?” “No fins or anything?” “No. No fins.” “Does it have a plate in a flattened bit on the nose?” “Yes. With a screw in the centre, and another off centre.” Silence. And the silence drags on a bit. Then Bob comes back again; “Are you still there Tim? Have you found it?” Silence for a second or two then Tim comes back; “Right Bob. Are you ready to do what it says?” “Yes! What does it say?” “Right Bob. Say after me ‘Our Father who art in Heaven…..”