October has been fairly settled for weather this year so we have been able to put a few trips in, it has been a busy mounth as usual.

The Tranquility headed back up to fish the north sea at the beggining of the mounth, as they had taken his quota for the year, in the area we work and he has quota left in the north sea to fish for prawns.







The Defiant hauling her nets.




So we found ourselves fishing on our own again, but it was not for long as we have been joined by Andy on the Defiant recently who had come west to join us in the southwest approaches fishing.

The Defiant is a 15meter trawler based in mevagissy about 40 miles up the coast from us.

We have been fishing mainly for haddocks, monks, lemons, megs, whitting, plaice with a good mix of other fish, the price for the haddocks has been down a bit the last few mounths, but it has started to creep back up in price.










We had a visit from HMS Tyne the last trip, it was a routine inspection, they were very thougher as per usual. I had just shot when they had boarded and after inspecting the catch I had to haul my nets again after only a couple of hours, which I was not to happy with, but rules are rules and they are just doing their job.











They checked the cod ends on my nets to make sure the mesh and twine size were correct, this is always a worry as sometimes our cod ends can shrink, so we always buy them bigger to allow for shrinkage, but I am glad to say the passed easily, as did the twine thickness test.



The Navy were aboard for nearly 3hours then they headed back to the tyne in their RIB off to inspect other vessels in the area.








The Navy do a good job with the boardings they are generally fair, but there has been talk of shifting the responsability to other organisatins for example the IFCA's. My personal opinion is that an independent fishery agency, like they have in Scotland would be best suited to this role, it would involve less manpower and they could use the same patrol boats as the navy, the navy carry 32crew onboard there fishery protection boats but they can run on 18crew.

The IFCA's would be best left at what they do best and patro within the 6mile limit around the coast that is where their exspertise lies, just a thought.

We headed up to Tom's boatyard last week for a short refit, we had quite a bit done in the 3days we were up the yard, with the stern roller fixed, new pipework in the engine room and other general mantainence work being done.

We also jet sprayed off the hull and sprayed a new antifouling on the hull, this is always well worth doing as it not only protects the hull, but it also reduces our drag in the water and we burn less fuel. So many thanks to Alan and the men at the yard for doing a great job as usual.






The Copius just ahead of us just coming out of the cradle, which is skippered by Dan Gumnow, she has just been sold to new owners from scotland and they are converting her to a scalloper.



The boat has headed east to work off the eddystone this week as the westerly strong winds have produced a large swell and this has made working to the west where we usually fish, more difficult.

The fishing has been good with a few cuttles amoungst the catch with a bit of prime as well, and there is less wind and swell that way.

The boat will be in tomorrow and will be landing direct onto Plymouth market for the first time ever, it will be nice to see the catch laid out on the market, something we havn't seen for over 6years.