Another visit to N114 Halcyon, skipper Graham Doswell, and crewed by Martin Wiltshire. Halcyon was now gill-netting with a range of mesh sizes of 90 mm and above. The catch was dominated by sole, plaice and mackerel with few discards, many of which, including roker aka thornback ray, were alive when returned.

Click on pictures to go to photo documentary

As the nets had been set the previous day, most fish were still alive, and this meant that the low numbers of sole and plaice that were under the minimum landing size could be returned alive (providing no seagulls were present). A couple of thornback ray was returned alive.

The catch was similar to that from the RX60 Alfie Elliot, gill-netting, just up the coast off Hastings and visited a few days later. Lobsters turned up in the nets, measured where necessary and undersized individuals returned. Small brown, velvet and spider crabs were becoming abundant and time consuming to extract. Although they were not smashed, a significant number lost limbs by the time they had been removed from the net, and their prospects poor.

One shad was caught, dead. it is not clear (see photo-documentary) whether this was an allis or twaite shad. These large relatives of herring breed in freshwater, and their populations have declined dramatically. Allis fisheries were once important, but English Nature has suggested that these collapsed due to barriers to migration up the rivers. Nevertheless fishing may now have an impact. The MSC evaluation of the Hastings sole net fishery concluded that trawling was likely the major source of the (worrying) 2.9 tonnes landed at Hastings in 2003. No seabirds or marine mammals were caught.

The fish were iced; essential on a sunny day.

Other fish were potentially available, notably red mullet in broadly the same area (but which would required different nets)  and larger spider crabs, on grounds further offshore