Early days

The sounds of the sea rushing into the harbour, chorused by the pleading cries of the greed hungry seagulls opens the year, opens this January; the herring shoals are spent and sparse, no longer the fishermans prey, as they pack their bags and leave the bay, having played and spawned they swim back up along the Irish Sea, until next Michaelmas, when nets and boats shall go out again.

Now the days are cold and thin of people. Jobs to do mount up, waiting in line for that warmer day, that drier day, that one day soon. We fish still the chilled waters, if any fish remain; this is the time for cod and sole with nets set upon the bottom, gill nets, trammel nets. Nets set close to rough ground to catch those feeding cod, if they're lucky enough to escape the busy trawlers roaming outside the bay. Trammel nets set on muddier ground for door mat Dover sole and pleasant plaice, but all too often a pack of always hungry dogfish, huss, murgies, hound the nets, caught by collar and cuff, yellow nosed, mud sniffing, bottom hounds. Why is it that what we need to see, that we try to catch, any fish worthy of the plate, we fail to find?
Clearing East winds have swept the bay and left it empty of fish, with only an occasional whiting or sand dab as a sacrificial offering.

But with the weather frostfull and icy still, the clear air gives perfect views of the sheltering bay, the hard brown leafless cliffs, the fresh watered waterfall dropping to the beach. This is the prize of fishing, the scenes unseen by most, the life that's not rich in pennies but worthy of a look. Early days for catching fish but perfect days for appreciating where we live.

This is our time of preparation, of getting ready, sorting, repairing, making anew, for too soon the time will run away and other seasons shall fall fast upon us; skate will find the mud, it is their breeding bay aswell and we'll be keen to catch some. Lobster pots, saved from last years service, will be pressed again, looking for rich reward. So though the harbour rolls with Atlantic swells and quiet are the village steps, in hidden corners, lofts and sheds, Clovelly fishermen still knot and splice and scheme and dream.