Margaret of Ladram Sets New Brixham Record
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Visit us online for news, features and nostalgia £3.25 5 December 2019 Issue: 5492 fishingnews.co.uk TOUGHER DISCARDS POLICING TURN TO PAGE 2 FOR THE FULL REPORT Margaret of Ladram sets new Brixham record … on first trip back after Rugby World Cup The Waterdance-owned beamer Margaret of Ladram E 199 broke the Brixham record landing for a single trip last month when 7.5t of Dover sole, auctioned on the market Margaret of Ladram leaves Brixham floor by Brixham Trawler Agents, grossed £125,630. fishmarket after landing her record- breaking catch. Margaret of Ladram skipper Adam Cowan-Dickie – whose son Luke plays rugby for England and Exeter Chiefs – turned the boat around and went straight back to sea, without even waiting to see what his record catch had made. The record-breaking trip was his first after returning from watching Luke Cowan-Dickie play for England during the recent Rugby World Cup in Japan. Skipper Adam Cowan-Dickie said: “I’ve been managing my sole quota and my days at sea for the past 11 months, just so I could try and break this record. I found this little patch of good fishing just before the World Cup started, but I was unable to fish it because of bad weather. I obviously couldn’t miss the chance to watch my son playing in the World Cup, so I was keeping my fingers crossed while I was away watching Luke that no one else would find it. After being in Japan for so long, I ended up spending a small fortune, so I really needed to land this catch! “Many people don’t realise that this was a sustainable catch. I have my sole quota, which is based on what can be sustainably caught, given to me in January every year. It is then down to me to manage my yearly quota how I want throughout the year. Because of 15 years of careful management, the sole population off Brixham has been increasing year on year. “This record wasn’t just broken by me. It was a team the massive financial investment put in from the vessel’s effort and the result of years of hard work, right from owners at Greendale, to all my crew and shore support staff, as well as the team at Brixham who sold the fish for us to be able to break the record.” The 33m beam trawler Margaret of Ladram has been the jewel of the Greendale fleet since the Exeter-based company bought her from Belgium in 2012. Her new owners carried out an extensive refit, including a new main engine and a complete machinery overhaul, and she has been skippered by Adam Cowan-Dickie since 2015. Barry Young, managing director of Brixham Trawler Agents, said: “It is fantastic news that Margaret of Ladram has broken our longstanding Brixham port record for fish landed, with a value of £126,000. Not only is Adam a very Right: Margaret of Ladram skipper Adam Cowan-Dickie... good hardworking skipper, but he’s managed to pin down Left: … and his son Luke, who played for England in the the fish using a lot of skill and a bit of luck. Results like this Rugby World Cup final loss to South Africa. don’t just happen overnight – this is the result of years of investment and hard work from everyone involved in the Carter, who farm at Ladram Bay and Greendale, and industry. is named after their late mother Margaret Carter. The “This is a good sign that things are finally improving, brothers have been involved in the fishing industry and hopefully, if we manage to get a positive Brexit, things for over 50 years, starting out in the 1960s with one can only improve for us further. There has been a bit of 6m beach boat fishing from Ladram Bay. Today, the celebrating going on down on the quay today, but not Waterdance fleet – part of the Greendale Group of by Adam and his crew, who are already back out at sea family-owned companies – has over 20 boats, selling The skipper and crew of Margaret of Ladram working hard on next week’s landing.” their catches daily via the Carter brothers’ farm shop at celebrating their record catch. The boat is owned by brothers Robin and Rowan Greendale, just outside Exeter. 2 NEWS Visit us at fishingnews.co.uk and on Twitter @YourFishingNews 5 December 2019 MMO set to toughen discards enforcement in 2020 End of ‘education’ phase of discards ban The MMO will be taking a tougher line on enforcing the landing obligation/discards ban next year, after a period of educating fishermen on the requirements of the rules, reportsTim Oliver DEFRA official Andrew infrastructure changes were being fostered co-ownership of the Newlands told a recent meeting made, with storage bins being problems and co-management. of the Seafish Discards Action increasingly installed at landing He warned of a critical period Group – now renamed the ports and harbours. ahead, with the proposed heavy Fisheries Management and DEFRA and the MMO are cut in the 2020 North Sea cod Innovation Group (FMIG) – that currently exploring the potential TAC, and the Commission’s rigid during the phasing-in period of use of remote electronic adherence to cutting TACs to the discards ban, much of 2018 monitoring (REM) using onboard achieve MSY by 2020, creating and the early months of 2019 CCTV cameras, alongside other major choke risks in mixed had been focused on ensuring monitoring and enforcement fisheries next year. that fishermen had the right tools, as a cost-effective and He also warned of the danger information to be able to comply efficient way of monitoring fishing that continued illicit discarding, with the new requirements. activity and ensuring compliance. in fisheries where there was extra He said: “Following this initial Some trials of REM have quota allocated on the basis period of education, in English already been undertaken, and that there would be no discards, waters the MMO is now moving have reduced discarding rates would lead to an increase in towards a more enforcement- ‘significantly’ – for example, in a fishing mortality, and thus to lower centred approach – where number of fisheries throughout TACs. control and enforcement the UK since 2011, and in the He said that the industry hoped efforts will be increased to English North Sea as part of a that the new fisheries bill after identify non-compliance and to fully documented fisheries (FDF) Brexit would give scope for a improve the accuracy of catch scheme, managed by the MMO. more workable discards ban. recording, particularly in high- NFFO chief executive Barrie Seafishgear technologist risk fisheries.” Deas, who gave a roundup of Mike Montgomerie described This enforcement-centred where the discards ban stands in the latest selective gears that approach includes: 2019, said there were two schools had been approved in 2019 by ● Recording the last-hauled of thought on enforcing the policy. the MMO, Marine Scotland, and catch on vessels to assess One was that the discards ban DAERA in Northern Ireland, to the catch profile (rather than could not be simply imposed give fishermen more options to only what has been retained by heavy policing, and that it help them meet the demands of onboard) required ‘a major cultural shift’ in the landing obligation. He said ● Increasing the number of attitudes if it was to work. It was that the EU revised technical inspections of landings and at an ‘extremely complex’ issue, conservation regulations will also sea and the authorities would need give fishermen more options to ● Rolling out the under-10m to work in collaboration with the improve selectivity. catch-reporting system industry to address the issues The new approved gears he ● Introducing inshore vessel involved. Within this view, REM described included the benthos “Is it just me, or has this whole bloody landing obligation monitoring systems had a role to play, but not as a release panel, flip-up rope, just got a bit more bloody serious?” ● Increasing the scientific ‘top-down’ heavy-handed control Flemish panel, CEFAS net grid, evidence base of the state of the mechanism. net grid selectivity device, Seltra stocks. An alternative view was that flip-flap trawl, Sep Nep, Eliminator direct fish in nets was ‘the next be trialled on the west coast of He said that through its CCTV onboard vessels was a trawl, and square mesh panels. frontier’. Scotland up to the end of 2020. contact with the industry, ‘panacea’ that would resolve the Barrie Deas said that there Paul Macdonald of the Scottish It follows the EU’s zero-catch and from the MMO’s data on enforcement problem – but in had been a general increase in Fishermen’s Organisation gave advice for cod and whiting on discarding activity, DEFRA was reality, there were legal, ethical selectivity over the past 20 years, a detailed description of the the west coast, where fishermen seeing increased engagement and practical issues associated and that fish below MCRS were development in Scotland of a real- need to keep fishing for healthy with the requirements of the with enforcing mandatory use of not a major feature of catches. time software system to report stocks such as haddock and landing obligation, and believed cameras. He said that mandatory cod and whiting catches, and monkfish. greater efforts were being made He said that progress had selective measures that reduced enable skippers to avoid areas A small by-catch allowance to comply. been made on co-working with fishermen’s marketable catch of high concentration (Fishing has been set up in this and For example, the market the formation of the Landing ‘rarely deliver’, and that it was News, 21 November, ‘High-tech other zero-catch fisheries, but for stocks below minimum Obligation Forum by DEFRA/ ‘the mindset in the wheelhouse’ approach to cod avoidance’).