Inverness and Fort William Attractions!

[fortyplus]

A creel boat - the fisherman I know is based up on Loch Hourn, the other side of the hills of Knoydart from mallaig.

Its a pretty cool job, as long as the weather is okay - therefore its a nightmare! However, as a townie I loved it - especially the commute by dingy to the boat.

The sad part is that when he went there in the 70's he could fish for a couple of hours right on the doorstep and have a plenty big catch - now he has to chug out to sea nearly 2hrs (its a slow boat), prawn populations are suffering as much as all fish populations.

I have little sympathy for industrial fishing - trawlers are scum as far as I can see -

I was fishing out of Ballachulish in the 70s, on a creel boat, hauling ten fleets a day. In those days we'd catch prawns as big as lobsters in ten fathoms at the top end of loch linnhe, smaller ones in deeper water. We landed the catch at Ballachulish and drove it to Oban where it was airfreighted to Barcelona. It was a good business to start with but it all got a lot more marginal when the price of diesel went up from 10p a gallon. Most creel boats fish single-handed now, which just seems really dangerous to me. It was OK in summer, but hauling, baiting and stacking creels on a bouncy deck in a blizzard wasn't fun.