It's always good to get to the end of the year and put your feet for a few days, we have had a busy year this year and apart from a big refit back in june we have worked pretty much none stop up until december.

We had a week of stormy weather in the 2nd week of december and with it being close to the last market of the year, we called that it early and got on with some much needed mantainence work.

The fishing has been steady right through the year with good catches of monk, haddocks, dory's and a welcome return of good catches of whiten.

We have been fishing mainly to the south and sothwest of the Scillies for most of this year and we have been to quite a few areas that we have never fished before. This has opened up some new oppertunities for us and as a result we have had better fishing.

This year was a turning point for the fishing industry as a whole, we have all had better fishing this year, which is great and this has been reflected with the quite substantial quota increases seen at the december council this year.

This has been a long time coming, if you went back 20years the fleet was probibly 3 times the size that it is now, however it was way to large and way over capacity. In the last 10years we have had a much smaller fleet but we have been suffering the hangover of a large fleet up until 5-6years a go when the stocks started to improve.

The quota's that we have been given in the last 5-6years have been to small for the amount of fish on the grounds, and we in the industry have been trying to put across this point to the scientists and the commision, this year I am glad to say they are starting to listen to the fisherman and have increased the quota's.

A large part of the problem is that there is nowhere near enough science being done by observers onboard the boats involved in the industry and they rely to heavily on there own scientific survey boat the CEFAS Endevour.

The scientific approach is still to remote from what is happening on the ground, they have a real struggle to get scientists to work aboard the fishing fleet, as for many at CEFAS it is too far outside there comfort zone.

For the industry to have better scientific data this approach has to change, I think they should make it mandortey for any new personel who join CEFAS to serve their time data gathering as observers onboard the fishing vessels, cutting thier teeth so to speak at the sharp end of the industry, so when they move higher up in the scientific business they know whatt they are talking about.

Well thats enough of my science and quota gripes, it's now 2012 and we are looking forward to the year ahead. The weather is to poor at present to put to sea, but it is looking better from friday onwards and it will be good to get back to it and start catching some fish again if all's well.

Happy new year to you all.