Autumn  is well underway and as per usual the cuttle's are on the fishing grounds, the cuttle season is a bonus for us this time of year and with the unsettled weather setting in they are a welcome boost to a days work.



They start off as young cuttles and live in the estuary's along the south coast, and through the summer months they stay close to shore and increase in size quite quickly. Then in the autumn they start to move offshore, we are not quite sure what triggers this but it seems to coincide with the southwest rains around the autumn equinox, some years they are early some years late depending on the rainfall, it's as if the rain washes them out of the rivers.






The first place to start catching the cuttle's is off Brixham in lyme bay, then depending on the weather they slowly make their way down the coast and by late autumn, january they are well to the west of the lizard point.


This year they started on time and the fishing has been steady but it has been an average amount, no big year this year. We have been fishing to the west most of the time this year as the weather has been settled and the fishing has been good.








We went up to Brixham a few weks ago for a couple of days while the weather was poor to the west, but we were not set up right to catch the cuttles as we had our gear set for fishing to the west. We made a living but if we were to pursue the cuttles for any length of time we would need to have smaller nets and longer sweeps aboard the boat.


So we headed back west and fished well the last couple of weeks on monk fish and haddocks, but just incase we had to go back east we decided to see if we could have a couple of nets ready.





We were not sure what to do as the weather was fine and we were fishing well to the west but we needed some nets ready just in case it turned poor from the west, but with the cuttle season well underway we were not sure if we would get the nets made in time.


Luckily we phoned our net maker willie at Faithlie Trawls and he promised to have two new trawls ready within a week, we went through with him exactly what we required the nets to do and he had a design ready the next day and started to make the nets.


True to his word within a week willie had the nets all ready and delivered to Newlyn, which is some going in a week!. I sailed that night and with the forecast looking poor for a few days we headed east.


I shot the trawls with the extra long bridles and we got the spread we wanted and the speed we needed to tow at straight away and the first haul we were fishing away well. We were also seeing a good few squid and whittings within our catch due to the special design of the trawls.


But the weather turned really poor the next 24hours and although we fished well into the weather you could tell the fish were taking off, so we gave it another day just incase it was the weather, but by the next day we new the cuttles were on the move.



So with a finer outlook we moved back to the west and finished our trip off with some good fishing of monk and haddocks, we had even started to see the cuttles to the west, so they seem to have moved down the coast early this year.


The cuttle is quite a messy beast it looks a bit like a cornish pasty with tenticles, but if it come's under attack it squirts thick black ink everywhere, so as you can imagine when the fishing is heavy we get covered in ink.


 The cuttle's are sold mainly to the continent, where they are very popular in Italy and the Italians have some great recipies for them. They also fetch a decent price and the best thing is that the price remains steady right through the season.








The boat sailed again today after the weather we had last night had passed through and they are hoping to push through and get a few days in hopefully have a bit of fish and a few cuttle's if all's well. 

We have been fishing mainly to the west of the lizard point lately, but last weekend the forecast to the west was not looking so good so we headed east to fish in the more sheltered waters in lyme bay.

The cuttle fish had started to come onto the grounds up to the east and for 3 or 4 days we had not to bad a fishing for them, but by tuesday with the strong spring tide making the cuttle fishing started to slacken off. So the boat headed back down the coast to fish to the west agiain.

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The excellent fishing for litter scheeme has been running in the southwest for well over a year now, and I am proud to say we have been part of the scheme from day one.

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