Fishing Boats

As I have told you before, catching fish helped fill the larder, or in the 1970s, it was a happy income whenever we could get out in the boat.

From previous posts, you can see how nasty the Bay can get, and any boat moored there had no chance.

Today, with modern weather forecasts, you will get fairly accurate predictions of wind, waves, and swell.

The last one was important, as if you got a big swell in the Bay and you had your boat on a mooring, you couldn't get it ashore. So, you had to stand there and watch it go up and down in the big waves.

If the wind picked up, then it was bye-bye boat. I lost 7!

Normally they just sank on their moorings, so when the swell and wind dropped, you could salvage them.

Sometimes there was nothing to salvage.

All we could do back then was get the shipping forecast, which only gave wind speed and direction, so it was easy to get caught out.

The first few times I used to go down and watch my boat on its moorings being battered by the waves.

Around number 5 sinking, I never bothered. After all, what could you do?

I went down in the morning, and if the boat was upside down, so what!

If it had gone, so what?

Get another boat. No good crying about it; we all knew what the Bay was like.

The weather around the Bay can change very quickly, even for the most experienced people who have fished there for years, and it is so easy to have gotten caught out.

No mobile phones, no radios on our small boats, and in most cases, no life jackets.

What was the point in a life jacket? By the time you were reported missing, you would have died of hypothermia in the sea.

Apart from that, not many people who ran boats could swim. Why would they learn? No indoor swimming pools, no instructors, and the sea in the summer is cold, so rather than learn to swim, learn how not to go overboard!

Anyhow, one fine evening I went out with Cousin Bob, who was staying with me, just to check the pots and pull my 'long lines.'

A long line is a line with many hooks about 2 meters apart and about 100 meters long.

You bait it all with an anchor at each end then pull it the next day, and hopefully, you will have caught something nice, like a big Bass.

This time when we were about a mile from the Bay, for no reason, the wind picked up against the tide, which very quickly made the sea bloody rough.

Worse still, we only had a Seagull motor, and we were having trouble punching the waves and tide.

Then disaster, the bloody engine died.

In those conditions, you could not row back to the bay, and it was getting dark.

I was trying to start the engine without any success.

Our only option was to try to row the boat under the cliff then jump out. The boat would be lost as there was no place to land it, and then wait until we were missed the next day and hopefully rescued.

This was a last option, as if we had to do that, I would never have lived it down from fellow fishermen.

Bob was bailing the boat out as we were shipping water over the side when we heard people shouting from the cliff above us.

They could see we were in trouble and were waving at us.

As I said, no mobile phones back then.

I said to Bob 'shout back to them.'

Bob said, 'what should I shout?'

'What do you think?' I said. 'Help!'

Just then, the mighty Seagull outboard started, and with the people following us from the cliff top, we made it back to the bay, but it was a close thing as by then the weather had picked up, and it was nasty out there.

Another ten minutes, and we wouldn't have got back, and with luck, we would only have lost the boat and spent a night under the cliff.

The sea is a lonely place sometimes.

Although there was a bit of animosity between boats, there was an unwritten rule that even if you did not like the guy, you would help them pull their boat up the beach.

The reason for this was twofold. 1, He would help you next time you were struggling. 2 The real reason was that you could sneak a view at what he had caught, and as everyone knew where everyone else was fishing, if he had done well, then the next day, you would fish there.

A lot of the guys didn't care who knew, as what we caught was minimal, but a few were very possessive about 'their stretch of water,' and made it clear in uncertain terms that they wanted no one else to fish there.

Obviously, they had no rights to do this as you can fish where you like, but as we all had our own 'stretch of waters,' it seemed to work.

Woe betide anyone who infringed these agreements, for the next time they went out to get their pots, they would find that all the marker buoys had been cut off.

The other thing that used to happen was other people pulling your Lobster pots and stealing the lobsters.

This is against the law, but as a few token cases proved, virtually impossible to prove.

So... The answer was, shoot a line of pots (you always 'shot' or placed your pots in a straight line to make them easier to find next day) then on one pot, that you knew by the marker bout, just had a heavy weight on it to make it hard to pull.

Then on the rope, stitch in a few fish hooks and razor blades.

As the sneaky thief was pulling hard to get the extra grip, they would get a handful.

It may seem hard, but they were stealing our lobsters.

Word soon went round, but a few Yachtys (oh, let's pull a pot and get a Lobby) learned the hard way as the local Yarmouth Doctor had to stitch a few hands up.

Back then, fish were plentiful, and a lot of it was classed as trash and basically worthless.

Pollock, Pouting, Conger, Mackerel, Scad, were only used for bait.

Now back then, there was a chef at a local hotel, called Colin.

Not the hotel the chef.

He was an excellent chef and ran his kitchen and accounts.

He decided to buy a boat and catch fish to sell in the hotel restaurant.

Unfortunately, he may have been a great chef and a character, but he was a bloody awful fisherman.

Didn't have a clue.

But he did come from England.

We got to know him well and shared a few beers with him when he told us he would buy any small pollock (a type of the cod family that then were worthless) that we could get.

Naturally, we were happy to supply this, but he only wanted small ones, not the big thumpers that we knew where to fish for.

Sometimes he paid us in cash, other times in prime steak.

One day after a few beers, I asked him why.

He ran the kitchen and accounts, etc.

The small pollock we gave him, he skinned, dyed in red food

dye, then with a good sauce, put them out as local 'sea trout' at a high price.

As nearly everyone who stayed at the hotel didn't have a clue what a sea trout was, he made a killing.

But in all fairness, he asked me to try one one day, and it was lovely the way he did it with the sauce!

Remember back then it was all cash!

I know for a fact that today, places still do this trick, putting Lemon Sole on as Dover sole, etc.

Unfortunately, occasionally someone knows the difference, but what can they do except complain and send it back, where they may get the obligatory apology that it was a genuine mistake, etc., etc.

Yeah, right!

My wife hates going out for a meal with me because if it is rubbish, I complain and send it back, then go home and hit Trip Advisor.

But if it is good, I also put it on Trip Advisor.

People do not complain when out. Why not?

The average pub meal for two with a couple of drinks each is £40-50, and it is usually the same stuff you can get from the local supermarket for a fiver.

Scampi and chips, a burger with those bloody awful sweet buns and a silly flag out of the top.

Two glasses of wine that cost as much as a bottle each, and a pint that you can get six bottles for in the supermarket for a couple of quid more.

But yet again I drift off the subject.

Next time...

The Bridge, Needles Light, and why never to trust Buoys!

Hope you like my tales. If so, spread the word, as there's no point writing for nobody.

Nik