HARDY FISHERMEN

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 671, 25 October 1933, Page 2

HARDY FISHERMEN

■ TRAWLER CAPTAINS WIIQ ' MAKE £3009 y s i A YEAR. CHANCE FOR YOUTH. if How many people know (that a de.ep- , sea flsherman neyer spepds thir.ty ' days ashore out of 365?" That most , of Britain's fish is caught over 1000 | miles from home ? Or that some j skippers make £30.00 a year? ; To find the fish for the British ■ Isles more than 2000 first-class fish- ! ing vessels are continually at sea, ■ employing some 30,000 men. Every trawler carries a crew of eleven to fourteen men/ and they are often away for more than a jnonth. Meanwhile their womenfolk are "well employed. Hundreds of hraiders, or women netmakers, are constantly at "'work. For. the nets more than 10,000,000 balls of twine are used ! each y-ear. Or take ice. Every deep-sea trawl- I er carries 70 tons of- ice a trip. • The ' ' biggest joke in Grimshy is taking ice ' . in the winter to the White Sea, where the temperature is 30 de'grees (below zero. Ice. . ^ It is li'ke taking coals to Newcastle, . but, then, icebergs are not made to fit fish'-holds. (Eyery year the Grimsby ice factory manufactures over a quarter of a million tons. Besides the trawl method of fishing, in which a net like an enormous sack is dragged along the sea-bed, there are other ways of harvesting ' the deep. An interesting example are the line fishermen. One hoat shoots ten miles of lines with 10,000 hooks all haited ' wtih' herrings. A good day's fishing is twenty score of halibut. Unfortunately the line fishermen have dwindled from 1000 ' to 200 withinj the last year. In al lfishing it is the skipper who counts. He finds the fish and. the owner pays him handsomely. He receivea £10 in every £100 his catch makes. But if he makes a bad trip he has to foot the bill. Hfany a skipper has found himself £30 in deht at the end of a voyage. The great thing about the fishing industry is the chance fo'r the youngster. Deckhand at eighteen ha can •be skipper at twenty-three. The eldest skipper out of Grimsby to-day has held his ticket for fortyeight years. He is seventy-two, but he still goes to sea. That's what the call of the sea means. British skippers are the smartest and British trawlers thej hest equipped in the world. Every device is in- ' stalled to render fishing easier and safer. Electric winches, wireless telephones and direction finders, and that invaluable aid to all skippers — the echq sounder and chart recorder — Ihave found a ready market among trwaler owners. To-day skippers can speak by telephone to'any othir trawler on the seas. Nearly twenty million cwt. of fish was landed in Grimshy last year. A million was turned into fish manure and poultry meal, but this total is rising. A bad sign, since it means a glut on th'e market. This is due in great part to foreign competition; £400,000 of foreigneaught fish was landed in Grimsby last year. There is no bitterer blow for a trawl flsherman than to come home after a str-enuous trip and find the foreigner there first.