We have had a busy few weeks since I last blogged again, with the settled weather we have put in a few back to back trips. The fishing has been good, with some good catches of  the usual haddocks, whitens, lemons, monks, megs, with some winter/ spring extra's, like witches, bass and quite a few conger eels.

The witch is a flat fish with the look of a lemon sole but the skin colour and texture closer to a megrim, they are really good to eat, just like a lemon and are easy to fillet. The good news is they are half the price of  a lemon sole so if your looking for a tasty bargin then ask for a witch, I recommend them.

The beamers are still working the cuttles, but they have moved well offshore now  and the last trips that they landed the cuttle catches were starting to drop and the skippers said they had seen quite a few cuttle back bones floating on the surface now. so it looks like they have come to the end of their life cycle and have bred and died




The AA steaming in to land, with a seagull on route to inspect.

The beamers have had a good run this year with the cuttles staying bunched up and with fairly settled weather to be able to get out and catch them.

We have had quite a few congers the last couple of months but this last trip we had a big suprise in one of the nets, we hauled to find a giant conger amoungst the catch. He was quite a handfull as you can imagine, it took two of us to handle him. We manged to gut and wash him then had a job to get him down the hatch into the hold, eventually we got him below, but he was to large for a box so he spent a few days in the ice pound.







This is him in the back of the lorry when we landed.

We see quite a few congers this time of year, they must come closer to the shore to feed in the spring, they say that they only breed once in their life and most usualy come from the sargasso sea, which is in the sub tropical Atlantic, where they must breed.

All we know is that they are a powerfull fish and can cause havoc at times on deck, I had one grab hold of my boot once, I had to take my wellie off and shake him off it, such was the strength in their jaws.

This one was not a record but he was quite a size, he must of been up to 70kg and was a good 8feet long.

They are popular on the continent where they are cut into steaks, I reckon this one will have made a few steaks.









We have seen plenty of traffic as usual, with quite a bit of naval traffic recently, this was from the royal fleet auxillary and was one of the bay class supply ships.

The boat sailed again last friday and they are due back in again thursday evening, the fishing has been good again and the weather has remained settled, so lets hope this keeps up. 

We have quite a few mantainece jobs to do this time when we land, with a change of warps and an oil change to do so we will hopefully be ready to sail again later on friday if all's well.