Fishing for Cod,French documentary ………a very hard life

Thanks for posting this. I’ve glanced at it, I’ll watch it properly this evening.

Saint Quay Portrieux (where I keep my boat) and the other ports around the bay of Saint Brieuc were home to a fishing fleet that would go away to the Grand Banks for months on end. There is much reference to it as it is a huge element of local history. I understood this to have been from the mid 19th century until WWII. I hadn’t realized that it continued to 1980.
 
Thanks for posting this. I’ve glanced at it, I’ll watch it properly this evening.

Saint Quay Portrieux (where I keep my boat) and the other ports around the bay of Saint Brieuc were home to a fishing fleet that would go away to the Grand Banks for months on end. There is much reference to it as it is a huge element of local history. I understood this to have been from the mid 19th century until WWII. I hadn’t realized that it continued to 1980.
Yes the Cod offered good quality protein…….itsall gone now….There is a good book titled COD well worth a read
 
I suppose I could but knowing Spanish bureaucracy could be next year I finish filling inthe papers😂

Will the town hall pen-pushers really be out there to see you drop your, er, 'depth-sounding plumb line' over the side of your boat, haul up the fish it inadvertently snagged, and accidentally drop it into your frying pan?

I thought a casual disregard for the rules was an ancient and noble Spanish tradition. Aren't you yet sufficiently culturally assimilated?
 
Will the town hall pen-pushers really be out there to see you drop your, er, 'depth-sounding plumb line' over the side of your boat, haul up the fish it inadvertently snagged, and accidentally drop it into your frying pan?

I thought a casual disregard for the rules was an ancient and noble Spanish tradition. Aren't you yet sufficiently culturally assimilated?
Yes after all these years I am still have the English respect for the law but things are changing here pen pushers are more amenable and respect for bits of paper is growing🙂only yesterday the previous owner impressed on me not to mislay the paperwork for the outboard😂
 
" I hadn’t realized that it continued to 1980."

Late 1960 on my first voyage out of Avonmouth we were bound for Cornerbrook Newfoundland to load rolls of Newsprint paper for the Sydney Times in Australia. On lookout during the watches while crossing The Grand Banks there were a great number of boats working the area, but if I remember correctly they were almost all Portuguese flagged vessels.
 
" I hadn’t realized that it continued to 1980."

Late 1960 on my first voyage out of Avonmouth we were bound for Cornerbrook Newfoundland to load rolls of Newsprint paper for the Sydney Times in Australia. On lookout during the watches while crossing The Grand Banks there were a great number of boats working the area, but if I remember correctly they were almost all Portuguese flagged vessels.
Alan Villiers The Quest of the schooner Argus is all about that. He joined a Portuguese banks cod boat for a trip to the fishing grounds. Very good read.
 
Alan Villiers The Quest of the schooner Argus is all about that. He joined a Portuguese banks cod boat for a trip to the fishing grounds. Very good read.
Yes, grand banks cod fishing WAS a Big deal out of Portugal and Galicia.

Passed thru the grand banks area many times over the years (containers to E. coast US and Montreal). Fuels and chemicals to the Nova Scotia and newfoundland paper and aluminium industries.
Never noticed much fishing.
I think they similarly decimated the Turbot stocks in that area?


Wandsw. The COD book you mentioned is indeed fascinating. I need to hunt down the quest of Argus.
 
Didn't Portuguese boats get their crew from the Azores? I have a book (not at home just now so can't get title) on the Grand Banks salted cod fishing. Dories sent out in the morning and had to find their way home later, often in fog.

My father fished for cod with line and would salt and dry them up on a wall. Stockfish they call it in Scandinavia. I said to him once it didn't seem very sporting. He laughed and said a lot of them came onboard foul hooked. That was from where the ferry to Orkney now leaves.

He used an arc of wire with lead weights. Hooks were baited with boiled limpets. I was surprised to see them as a delicacy in the Azores. I can still remember the smell.

Ps: just found this - Amethyst – polishing a Summers gem at Lochaline - Fishing News See towards the end on cod fishing methods.

It seems my father was cod rippering and used a sproule. This must have been common in northern Scotland. I saw an image in Stromness museum of the setup.
 
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