This weekend – over the period from Thursday 7th – Sunday 10th April 2011 – the Scottish Sea Angling Conservation Network (SSACN) is holding a Skate Tagathon in the waters of the Sound of Jura, off the entrance to Loch Craignish.
It is operating out of the seductively located Ardfern Yacht Centre and based at the Galley of Lorne Inn. It brings sea anglers – and their boats – from all over the UK to help in this important conservation work.
These events are all about collecting data on the number and movement of shark species, Skate, ray and shark all belong to the elasmobranch family – distinguished by having bodies that are cartilaginous rather than bony. Many of the sub species of this group are threatened by commercial fishing and by medieval practices like finning.
The endgame is good strategic management of a fishery that brings more annually to the Scottish economy than does the nephrops (prawn) fishery. Alan Radford, an economist from Glasgow Caledonian University (talking above to SSACN’s Willie Kennedy) has written recent and authoritative research reports on the sea angling industry and its results surprised himself as well as the Scottish Government.
They did not surprise SSACN, which had been certain, from its knowledge of the industry, that its economic impact had been discounted without ever being measured.
The nephrops industry (prawns) brings around £17 million per annum to the west of Scotland economy. The sea angling industry brings £64 million to the same area and, operating in small numbers over large areas, using largely catch and release techniques, does not have an adverse effect on its target species.
Press Day
Friday was Press Day and we were in the impressive triple decked Reel Deal, owned by Stuart Cresswell (below left) and Willie Kennedy (below right), SSACN’s Events Team. It was a familiarisation and briefing experience for the media designed to spread the word on the significance and potential of the sea angling industry and to underline the importance of the pioneering work SSACN does in research into the species involved.
Alan Radford was also onboard and, a sailor and angler himself, came in handy later on when there was knowledgeable work to be done – fast.
The waters of the Sound of Jura have a good population of common skate and this weekend’s event is expected to find, tag and release as many as possible, They may also find the occasional thornback ray, the rare black mouthed dogfish (one was tagged on Thursday by Stuart and Willie) and the lesser spotted dogfish – which the common skate predate. (When they’re on deck for tagging (below) skate are quite passive but sometimes sick up what they’ve just eaten – and out come the lesser spotted dogfish they’ve just sucked up with their great crushing mouths.)
The plan was for Reel Deal to go out into the Sound of Jura and and tie up to a buoy laid the day before in the centre of the area the fleet was operating within. Then we would bait and weight the lines (we’re in deep water here) and then wait and see what happens. To skate or not to skate.
Argyll being Argyll, it was playing mysterious – all low sea mist, tantalising glimpses of islands beyond islands and a dramatic mainland coastline.
We slid out of the yacht centre in flat calm water to the sound of seabirds and slipped away south through the mist, with blurred snatches of the McCormaig Islands to starboard.
On the way out of Loch Craignish, we spotted fast raiders astern, determined to give Reel Deal a run for it. As they made a bold swerve to pass us on the port side, we identified the smugly grinning occupants as James Thorburn, SSACN’s recent former Project Officer and Jason, photographer extraordinaire – with his new and tiny white puppy, obviously acclimatising to (speedy) life on the water.
James Thorburn is leaving SSACN to do his Ph.D and his Oban-based job is now advertised, with a closing date of 18th April 2011.
Before going to our buoy, we toured most of the fleet of eight boats (photos scattered through this article) and – yes – three sea kayaks, up from the Midlands.
Sea angling from a kayak is such a fast growing sport that kayaks are now being made to support it. They have Harley Davidson style seat backs, bait compartments and sockets for the heavy duty rods (Top of the range prices are £150 a rod with reels at £350 a pop – and Stuart and Willie say ‘buying American is buying indestructible’.
But how is it possible to do sea angling – with these powerful big fish, from a low profile and shoogly kayak? Well it certainly is possible, The largest skate caught from a sea kayak is 110lbs. No tiddler.
Skate are strong and fast. When hooked, they don’t tear away on great swathes of sea to exhaust the angler in the way that sharks do. They fight hard, but differently. After hooking, they will go to the bottom, extend and flatten their huge wings and create a vacuum that sticks them to the sea floor. The angler usually thinks that the line’s got stuck under something.
An angler in a sea kayak has to keep the skate as vertically as possible below the boat to stabilise the impact of the pull on the craft. If the skate gets away wide to port or starboard, things can get difficult, One of Friday’s kayakers (above) had gone for an unplanned swim in the Sound of Jura the day before when he got pulled over. Grinning at the memory, he was back our on the water the following day, quite unfazed and ready for more.
Action stations
Gordon, in boat Tickety Boo, radioed in that he had a skate on but was single handed because his crew was arriving later. Reel Deal needed to get over to Tickety Boo to lend a hand – which meant getting all our 5 or 7 lines in – from 400 feet down – unbaited, unweighted, tidied up and back in their stowing sockets.
This is not quick – and this is where Alan Radford was invaluable, Stuart and Willie had another pair of capable hands aboard. It takes about half an hour to play a skate to the surface so Reel Deal did have the time it needed to get ready to move.
By the way, the bait often used for skate is known as a ‘kebab’ – for obvious reasons, The chunks of cut fish it contains leak oil into the surrounding waters and the scent attracts the skate. Some of Reel Deal’s lines came back in without their bait. They’re not ham fisted, these skate – and bait is also prey to tiny sea floor nibblers.
Over with Gordon (above), his rod clearly under pressure from a determined skate, we waited while he brought the skate up.
We’d seen pictures of skate and they’re fascinating fish – but nothing prepares you for the actual sight of the plump, pink fleshiness of their lips.
These are the Mick Jaggers of the submarine world and if there’s ever a new Muppet series made, there will have to be a skate muppet. They have a face underside as well as a face topside. Above the wide, soft mouth that hoovers the sea bed – pretty indiscriminately – are what seem to be eyes. They are, in fact, nostrils. The direct and somehow knowing eyes are topside. Right side up, from behind, they look like hippos, not fish and great ripples of air undulate their bodies from tail to head.
The lips are so tactile and so human that when they are semi submerged and water is washing into the mouth, you instinctively worry that they will drown. But they’re fish and nature has taken care of them with five or more gill slits on each side of the head.
Gordon hands over the rod for the skate to be brought aboard Reel Deal.
They’re brought in to the side of the boat face up, because one of the first jobs is to remove the hook from the mouth. Events like this Tagathon always – and most sea anglers as a matter of course – use catch and release techniques which employ unbarbed hooks.
The skate is gaffed through the wing (its vital organs are all in the long plump oval in the centre of its body) and either lifted (no easy job) onto the after deck of larger boats like Reel Deal or alongside smaller ones. It is then measured – wing tip to wing tip, snout to tail tip – splashed with water at regular intervals; fitted with a numbered tag; and released.
Once back in the water, a single movement takes it instantly deep below, so fast the eye cannot record the movement.
The anglers then read off its projected weight from a table calibrated on the two sets of measurements taken and then complete a data card for the tagged fish.
Before this first skate of the day was released, Gordon called that he had a second skate on. Stuart and Willie asked if anyone would like to have a go. Louise Lee from the Oban Times stepped up, got harnessed was given the rod and got stuck in to what is very demanding physical work. Respect.
She brought the fish to the surface for Stuart and Willie to take over for gaffing and landing aboard. It was pretty feisty, its spiny tail thrashing as they manhandled it. This is where the inexperienced can get a nasty rip injury.
On the deck, ready for measuring, it’s a real beauty – one for Louise’s personal history.
Both of our skates were female. The first skate was 61″ wide and 77″ long, weighing 160lbs. Louise’s skate was also 61″ wide but 80″ long and weighed 165lbs. A win.
Sea angling and Argyll
Scotland’s west coast waters – including Argyll’s - have the highest record in Europe and arguably the world, for recapture of elasmobranchs – shark, skate and ray.
These fish seem fairly randomly migratory so the regular west coast catching of fish previously tagged suggests that, unusually, we may have a resident population. The data collected by SSACN on events like this and analysed over time will test whether or not this is the case. If it is, the next challenge will be to explain it.
The Sound of Jura is known for its common skate; Loch Etive for its Spurdog; and the Sound of Mull and Loch Sunart for their skate.
East coast stocks are now seriously depleted through the overfishing of the traditional live feed for the shark family. The, partly consequential, decline of commercial fishing is evidenced by the place names along that coast that were originally given when fishing was the paymaster. There’s Whiting Point, where no whiting has been caught or seen for 20 years.
The richer waters of the west coast are something of a last chance saloon for these threatened species. And the west coast offers scenically much more to the visiting sea angler.
There is a charm and a sense of simultaneous sanctuary and risk in our rocky islets, reefs and saw toothed sea lochs.
The great uncompromising sweeps of the east coast command respect, awe and even courage but they lack the immediate charm of the nooks and crannies, the surprises and the shelters of the west. It is sunnier though.
Sea angling is a growing sport in Argyll and is a perfect fit for the progressive awareness that our unique selling point is the sheer scale and variety of activities our astonishingly rich area has to offer. Show us any other area that could challenge Argyll as Scotland’s playground?
SSACN’s work and achievements
In 2011 SSACN is running:
- its 4th Skate and Spurdog Tagathon in Lochs Sunart and Etive
- Its 3rd Sharkatag event in the Solway Firth – the single biggest fishing boat event in Scotland
- and this, its first Skate Tagathon in the Sound of Jura.
The 2010 Sharkatag, out of Drummore on the Solway Firth coast, brought participants from 28 counties in the UK and attracted sustained national television coverage.
Since 2007, when SSACN began its tagging, data collection and lobbying for protection for these species, its conservation achievements have been impressive.
- Porbeagle: in 2007 had no protection at all; in 2011 commercial landings are forbidden across the EU
- Tope: in 2007 had no protection at all; in 2011 are protected in England and Wales – but not in clean, green, ecologically friendly Scotland?
- Spurdog: in 2007 had no protection at all; in 2011 commercial landings are forbidden across the EU
- Common Skate: in 2007 had no protection at all; in 2011 have full EU protection
- Rays: in 2007 had no protection at all; in 2011 have a further 15% reduction in total allowable catch.
SSACN have a code of good practice available to all sea anglers and which governs its members. As well as guidance for the least stressful and damaging catch, tag and release techniques, it offers advice such as taking only fish for the table that have had a chance to reproduce.
The Network’s sustained lobbying campaign on behalf of the sport as well as on conservation and fishery management issues, has led to a Scottish Government commitment to develop sea angling.
How SSACN works
SSACN is a charity and a volunteer organisation.
Ian Burrett (above left) could be described as the public face of SSACN. He is its Vice Chair and a recognised expert in sea angling and species conservation.
He and his son Matthew run Onyer Marks, a sea angling charter business. They have increasingly been bringing that business to Argyll waters and this season will, as usual, work out of Crinan for a five week period now, with an added second period in the Autumn.
Steve Bastiman, a Yorkshireman and a former fisherman from Scarborough, looks after SSACN‘s communications (which are first class) and its highly successful political lobbying,
An east coast man, when he moved north to Scotland, he did think about the west but the draw of the magnificently masculine east coast was irresistible. We all carry the imprint of our origins and, generally, nothing else quite measures up.
The highly professional SSACN Events Team of Stuart Cresswell and Willie Kennedy (above) are lifelong friends, sea anglers since their early teens and share two boats – a day boat and Reel Deal. They barely need to talk now. The way they take decisions on the moment is almost telepathic.
They were members of the Scottish national sea angling team and were World Champions in 1998.
In their working lives, Willie has a plumbing business and Stuart (in profile below talking to Alan Radford) runs the ports of Ayr – Ayr itself and Troon. Neither seems to be able to stay away from water.
They too are increasingly coming to Argyll Waters and are in fact berthing Reel Deal at Craobh Marina for the next five and a half months, They’ll be here every other weekend. Their purpose is to see what they can find in the waters off the west of Islay, Jura and Colonsay.
Their friend, Hamish Currie who runs a sea angling charter business, in his RedBay Boats Predator (below), out of Cushendall in the northeast coast of Northern Ireland, has set them a specific challenge. We know what it is. We won’t give the game away but we hope to get progress reports to pass on.
Small world that it is, we actually met and talked to Hamish a few weeks ago when we went over to RedBay Boats with the Kintyre Express team. They were there to collect their new and second RedBay Stormforce 11 metre fully cabined RIB, Kintyre Express 2 (pictured two below).
On 27th May 2011 they are launching a new fast passenger service from Campbeltown to Ballycastle on the Irish north coast- a quick and fabulously scenic route that will bring back together the two parts of what was once the ancient Gaelic kingdom of Dal Riata and feed activity tourism business to both destinations.
The picture for Argyll
Overall, Argyll has a chance of turning its attention back to the water that used to dominate its political, cultural and commercial life.
We’re talking about the seat of the Lords of the Isles at Finlaggan in Islay – dominating the waters of the west coast from the Isle of Man in the South to the Orkneys in the north. And we’re talking about the doughty little ‘puffers,’ the coastal freight and passenger boats legendary in the extensive Clyde waterway and Argyll coastal islands.
Our sailing grounds are the best in the world; our diving grounds the best in the UK; our sea kayaking opportunities superb and in a growing sport.
We’re seeing the creation of a chain of marinas of individual character from the 5 star resort of Portavadie Marina in Cowal (about which we have published); to Tarbert on the other side of Loch Fyne; to the boat-focused and massively well resourced Ardfern Yacht Centre (above) from which this event has operated; to its near neighbours at Craobh Marina and Kilmelford Yacht Haven; to the marinas on the Isle of Kerrera on the west of Oban Bay and Dunstaffnage to the north of that town; to the charm and inspirational success of Tobermory Harbour Association on Mull. Oban?
We have the scenic shortcut from the Clyde to the Sound of jura through the Crinan Canal.
We’re getting the Kintyre Express waterbus and the Loch Lomond Seaplane services between the world class golf courses of Ayr and Kintyre.
We’re about to get the Kintyre Express waterbus to Ballycastle (above), bringing golfers, cyclists (free bikes) and walkers in both directions.
Now we are seeing the development of the economic driver of the exciting and ecologically responsible sport of sea angling. SSACN is a serious and respected organisation that has fought to win for its sport the recognition its performance merits. Building a good relationship between SSACN and Argyll’s visitor-facing businesses is in everyone’s interests.
All of this can’t be bad – and the water routes don’t get potholed or face governments, local and national, that play ‘pass the parcel’ with responsibilities for specific roads – like the A83.
NOTE: All photographs not described or identified in the text of this article, show boats that had come to participate in the SSACN Skate Tagathon fleet in Argyll’s Sound of Jura in the morning of 8th April 2011.