The Crystal Sea catches a lot of haddocks and they make up a large part of our yearly catch, when we head out to sea to catch the haddocks, we have to first find out where to start as the haddocks swim in shoals they are easy to catch but, they are not always easy to locate. We do this by looking at the state of the tide then we use our past diaries to work out the fishing pattern, which hopefully will put us in the right place to start.

The haddock is a great tasting and versatile fish, which can compliment any meal or style of cooking. The haddock stock is very healthy in the southwest and particularly around the Cornish coast. It’s mainly caught by trawlers and I am glad to say the Crystal Sea has plenty of quota available to be able to catch them sustainably and to meet the demand. The Haddock also has the thumbprint of St. Peter on the side of the fish and has a beautiful grey, blue coloured skin.

When we are catching the haddocks we only tow our nets for short periods of time so that we can keep the fish in tiptop condition, we also land our catches every 3-5 days to ensure a top quality product is delivered to the restaurants. We are also seeing a revival in the smoking trade and quite a few of our haddocks are now smoked and are sold locally.

Storing the catch

When the catch comes aboard the Crystal sea we sort then gut the fish, then we cool the fish a quickly as possible by dipping them in slushed ice sea water to bring the tempreture down as quickly as possible to ensure the fish retains its just from the sea look. We then send the fish down to our re-fridgerated hold where we place each fish in a box on a layer of ice and when each box is full it has a layer of ice placed on top then it is safely secured in the hold. We keep our fish hold at a constant plus 1 degree Celsius to ensure the fish arrives in the freshest condition for auction at the market.