The Scottish Sea Angling Conservation Network’s weekend fishing for skate in the Sound of Jura – from Friday 19th to this afternoon, Sunday 21st April – was focused on recapture, hoping to catch and release skate they have caught before. The information on the tags show where each skate was last caught, so periodic recaptures will indicate whether or not the pattern is one of colonies, possibly family groups, of skate resident in particular areas.
Skate are fascinating marine creatures for all sorts of reasons. They are the largest of the skate and are found in deep water.
- There is their delta ray shape, with its fluency of movement in water.
- There is their sheer size – one caught when we were out on Saturday – and not the biggest, measured five feet by six feet.
- There’s their long spiny tail which can be raised like a scorpion’s to strike and is a hazard sea anglers need to be skilled in protecting themselves against.
- There’s their poignant passivity, almost stoical, once they’re on the deck.
- There’s their fleshy core body with its massive and rather noble head running to a point. They’re almost square shaped, set on the diagonal, with the elongated snout at one corner and the long tail extending from the opposite corner.
- There’s the surreal ‘face’ on its pale underside – with the great pink rubber lips that hoover food as they swim on the deep sea bed they inhabit – lips wrapped around the bone plates that allow them to crush and eat lobsters and crabs. [They are not exclusively bottom feeders but also hunt in mid-water, feeding on spurdogs and rays.] Above and on either side of these lips are what appear to be little piggy eyes but are a sort of sensor.
- And there are the eyes – big [presumably because they live at depth] and somehow familiar, with the whites surrounding what looks like an iris. These are not like fish eyes, They seem to see you.
Common skate were once one of the most populous species in the Mediterranean and the North Atlantic – but no longer. In 2006 their threatened condition was upgraded to ‘Critically Endangered Globally’.
They reproduce by laying fertilised eggs, each in a protective hard case called a ‘mermaid’s purse.
The SSACN skate recapture event this weekend had a flotilla of around 15 boats, around a third of which were from the Ayr Sea Fishing Club, which had nominated the event as one of their annual competitions.
This flotilla was, as usual, watched over by, in alphabetical order, Stuart Cresswell [right] and Willie Kennedy [left] in their boat, Reel Deal. Stuart and Willie are the events organisers for SSACN, in a core team where the other components are the scientists who lead the research, the negotiators who advise government bodies and the promotional team.
Stuart and Willie are former world sea fishing champions with national wins to their credit as well. They fish as a lifestyle choice, fuelled by the experience of being on the water, using their developed skills and contributing to the conservation of stocks at the heart of the existence of SSACN.
They have fished all over the place, sometimes in competition, sometimes taking holidays on fishing trips. Their ‘net’ includes the Cape Verde islands and, many times, northern Norway, on the mainland above the Lofoten islands.
Conditions in the Sound of Jura on Friday were ideal – bright and flat calm – the best for catching skate. Eight were caught, four by a single boat.
Yesterday, conditions were bright but windy, with a pronounced ‘lump’ in the Sound of Jura – not good for skate fishing,
Boats anchored to fish and bounced on their buoys as if they were trampolining. Most boats had open forecabins for shelter but one, Shooting Star from Ardrossan [above], was an open boat – with a very successful fishing pair on board – who at one point yesterday were nowhere to be seen They were keeping out of the biting wind by lying in the bottom of their boat.
One boat, Sea Angler [above], was a new boat and possibly a new team. They came out of Ardfern Marina behind us [in Reel Deal], charging purposefully through the swell. One boat lost its anchor – too wedded to the sea bed to let go when it was time to go back ashore.
Reel Deal took a little time out for lunch in the shelter of Loch Crinan, calling up the various boats scattered across the Sound, to check on their performance and their prospects.
The call, ‘Fish on’, came three times, once in the morning and twice in the afternoon. Two were ‘clean fish’ – not previously caught and tagged, so they were duly tagged and released. The third was a recapture. The boats involved were Tartan Spartan, Explorer Elite and Trailblazer.
Over the two days to last night, eleven skate had been caught and released, five of them recaptures, all showing that they had been previously caught in this sea area. One had been caught on four previous occasions. These are indications that skate may live in territory-specific colonies – but that will be tested over a period by ongoing data collection of this kind.
On one occasion SSACN members have caught and released the same skate three times in a single day. Do they begin to realise that being caught results in release?
Once caught, they are brought aboard, with the smaller boats landing them on pieces of net laid on the deck in advance – used to lift and slide them into the sea after they have been measured, their tag data recorded or their first tag attached.
The measurement is a way of calculating their weight quickly, keeping them out of the water for the least possible time. It is calculated by a grid that uses their length and breadth – a grid evolved some time ago by a team, one of whom was Brian Swinbanks, now Chair of Tobermory Harbour Association in Mull.
SSACN is a serious and knowledgeable conservation body, informed by its own first hand experience of the alternative – a free for all. Their members have seen what had been a healthy skate population in Loch Sunart for instance, all but wiped out by the longliners who came in to take as much as they could get.
They have persistently worked to engage sea anglers in the practice of catch and release – the sport is the same while the stocks are conserved.
For the rest of it, the soul lifts to a bright day spent running out of Loch Craignish, past Eilean Righ and out into the Sound of Jura between the McCormick islands and Loch Crinan, with the white ripple of the Corryvreckan in the distance and the Paps of Jura making an appearance to grace the day.
Then there is the engagement with these mysterious and somehow sympathetic inhabitants of the deep.
It’s not hard to see the attractions of sea angling, a large and growing sport whose economics are soundly impressive:
- Sea angling expenditure is worth £140 million+ yr and 3500 FTE to the Scottish economy
- It is worth £22.6 million and 524 FTE to Argyll and Lochaber alone.
- The breakdown of anglers visiting the area is local 42% Scottish touring anglers 40% and RUK touring anglers 18%
This region has 5 of the top 20 launch sites and 2 of the top 10 shore fishing locations in Scotland.
There is a serious potential for sea angling in this area to be substantially developed.
Note 1: The figures above are from the Radford Report – Economic Impact of Recreational Sea Angling in Scotland Tender reference SAG/0005/07 – Prepared for the Scottish Government – July 2009
Note 2: Lead photo © JPS Hadfield, reproduced here with permission.