Listen to the interview:

An unusual catch at Newlyn Harbour this morning! Harbour Master Rob had all the details on BBC Radio Cornwall this morning.

You can find the show here on Listen Again:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p07pbmkv – Jump to 2:38:38. You will need a BBC account to listen

 

Alternatively, you can read the transcript below:

Morning Rob, what’s going on in your neck of the woods?

Since we last spoke, unfortunately the fishing hasn’t really improved, especially for the small guys. I sound like a broken record don’t I [with my] tale of woe, but unfortunately it is that way.

So hopefully things will improve, I would say the tide’s building now, so we’re going to see a little bit less hake, and we are still losing a bit of hake to some of the other markets, so we need to address that and we will.

But on a lighter note, one vessel did land a swordfish…

 

I saw pictures of that! So just describe this fish and how it was caught for us..

Well it was actually caught by one of the gillnetters and obviously they check if they can bring it in, as there’s an awful lot of restrictions etc… and they were told by the powers that be that it was ok.

Thirty five kilos and it was sold for a very large sum. There was a lot of interest from the press and the tv coming down because you don’t normally catch them off Area Seven, [as] they’re further south, they’re going to be off the Bay of Biscay really, I know that’s still part of  Area Seven as such, but you just don’t get them here, so it’s quite rare.

So yeah, it was nice, something a bit better than not a lot of fish on the market and something to look at, which was nice.

 

So Rob, I’m really nosy, how much did it go for?

I get told off when I say prices! Bit I think it was over £300

 

Ok, for one fish?..

Yeah, and I may be wrong on that, but I know it was a considerable sum because… I was speaking to Lionel this morning, my Market Manager, and he said the last time they had one of them was some time ago, and I said how long ago was that then?

And he said ‘Oh back in, I think it was, 1980’ and he was still there then… and I was four, so that was an interesting conversation… but he said that one was 40 stone back in the day! So it was a bit lighthearted, something better for us to look at.

But looking forward, we are hoping that, obviously, when the weather passes and that swell dies down, we’ll get to some normality, because the quantity of fish we’re having here isn’t anything that we would like, and we’ve got to improve on that but hopefully, [and] pray, that mother nature will help us out and we start landing some decent quantities of fish.

 

Yep, there’s nothing you can do about it, just hope that things improve.

Well Rob, thank you very much for joining us this morning and we’ll speak to you next week.