Plenty More Fish In The Sea

The first light of a grey dawn touched the night sky. We were wide awake and waiting, my brother and I, in the bedroom of a small fisherman’s cottage in a row of brightly-painted houses overlooking St Abbs harbour in Berwickshire.  Stones rattled against our window and we rushed to look. Jake Nisbet, dressed in a huge white jersey, a jaunty black cap on his head and trousers tucked into black boots, was beckoning. A few moments later we proudly followed him down to the harbour and boarded his boat.

Jake had a small, inshore boat, and he used to take us fishing in it below the red, ragged Berwickshire cliffs. But he also had a share in a much larger sea-going vessel and he had invited us to spend the day at sea, sleeping onboard over-night, returning to harbour the following evening. As a boy, I can’t remember ever being so excited about anything and I will never forget the experience.

Jake was a wonderful man, full of tales and stories about his whaling days in the South Atlantic. He had an amazing collection of whale-bones that he had carved into shapes and figures, and I believed every word that he said. He was one of those people to whom things happened. Many years later, when I read that a St Abbs fisherman had hauled in his nets and landed a complete suit of 16^th century armour, I knew instantly who that fisherman would be. I was right, it was Jake Nisbet

The days I spent with Jake and his crew settled in me my love of the sea and of fishing, a love that has remained with me to this day. Most of my fishing now is for wild brown trout, sea-trout and, occasionally, for salmon, but I still regard the sea as my spiritual home. All of human life owes its existence to the sea and I believe that anything that damages the sea and the creatures therein, damages us all.

But our seas are in trouble, from over-fishing and pollution, and nowhere more so than in the North Sea. When I was a young man, friends who had been ditched by girlfriends were told not to worry because there were ‘plenty more fish in the sea’, that they would soon find another woman upon which to lavish their affection. Today it ain’t necessarily so. There may well be plenty of girls left for men to woo, but our seas are being ruthlessly denuded of their fish.

It would be easy to blame our political masters for this ecological nightmare. So I will, because that is exactly where the blame lies. Since 1992, The International Council for the Exploration of the seas (ICES), who advise governments on the status of fish stocks, has warned of the impending collapse of North Sea cod stocks because of over-fishing. ICES reported, as far back as, 2003 that the numbers of young fish boosting cod populations in the North Sea were the lowest they had been in twenty years and advised, yet again, all cod fisheries be closed to allow stocks to recover.

When our granddaughter Jessica was a toddler and had created a shambles somewhere in the house, she would announce in a sombre voice, “Mess, granny”. The only words that I can think of that describe the present state of UK fisheries policy echo this cry, “Mess, granny”. In the 1990’s one of the worlds greatest cod fisheries, the Grand Banks fishery in Newfoundland, collapsed. In spite of all recovery plans it is still in a ruinous state. That is what is happening to cod stocks in the North Sea.

Fish farming is offered as an answer to dwindling wild fish stocks, particularly the farming of Atlantic salmon, but, in its present form, fish farming does not protect wild stocks from over-exploitation. Farmed fish are fed on a diet rich in oil and fat, and this oil and fat is sourced from small fish at the base of the food chain, species such as sandeels, pout, capelin and anchovies. In Scotland, best estimates suggest that it takes three tonnes of these small fish to produce one tonne of farmed salmon.

In the 1950’s, when we had a family holiday in Orkney, I discovered the miracle sea-pools left behind by the falling tide. From under every stone, sea-creatures scurried; killing and being killed by the larger or smaller inhabitants trapped with them in their temporary prison. The shores were coloured brown, blue and gold with rank, sweet-smelling seaweed. The air resounded with seabird cry. The cliffs where the birds nested were busy tenements, bustling with life.

Revisiting the islands today exposes the full extent of the impact that the mismanagement of our seas has had upon our environment. My rock pools are virtually devoid of life, barren and bare, and many of the cliff nesting sites where I marvelled at clouds of seabirds are often deserted. What, I wonder, would my childhood friend, Jake Nisbet from St Abbs, make of the state of our seas today? I don’t know, because he has long-since departed this life to fish in another place, but I know other fishermen who still make a living in and around our coastal waters.

As long as they continue to do so, then perhaps future generations of children will be able to stand at their bedroom windows, as my brother and I did so many years ago, waiting excitedly for the arrival of a kindly fisherman to take them on an adventure that will change their lives for ever. I am sure that Jake Nisbet would approve.

Bruce Sandison is a writer and journalist and author of nine books, including the definite anglers' guide, 'The Rivers and Lochs of Scotland' which is being revised and updated prior to republishing.

He contributed to 'Trout & Salmon' for 25 years and was angling correspondent for 'The Scotsman' for 20 years. Sandison writes for the magazine 'Fly Fishing and Fly Tying' and provides a weekly angling column in the 'Aberdeen Press & Journal'.
 

His work, on angling, Scottish history and environmental subjects, has appeared in most UK national papers, including 'The Sunday Times', 'The Telegraph', 'The Daily Mail', 'The Herald', 'Private Eye', 'The Field' and in a number of USA publications.
 

Sandison has worked extensively on BBC Radio. His series 'Tales of the Loch' ran for 5 years on Radio Scotland and was also broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and on BBC World Service. His series, 'The Sporting Gentleman's Gentleman' and his programme 'The River of a Thousand Tears', about Strathnaver, established his reputation as a broadcaster.
 

Sandison has had extensive coverage on television. He wrote and presented two series for the BBC TV Landward programme and has given a number of interviews over the years on factory-forestry, peat extraction, wild fish conservation and fish farming.
 

Sandison is founding chairman of 'The Salmon Farm Protest Group', an organisation that campaigns for the removal of fish farms from Scottish coastal and freshwater lochs where disease and pollution from these farms is driving wild salmonid populations to extinction.
 

Bruce  won 'Feature Writer of the Year' in the Highlands and Islands Press Awards in 2000 and in 2002, and was highly commended in 2005. Bruce lives near Tongue in Sutherland with his wife Ann.