Episode 2 The Fisherman's Apprentice with Monty Halls

For hundreds of years,

small fishing boats have set sail to bring home

the riches of our coastal waters.

He's got one, he's caught a monkfish, yes!

But fishing is changing.

Deep sea trawlers are replacing traditional boats.

Fish stocks are in decline

and fishermen are getting a bad name.

Hour after hour, day after day, I've lowered fish through that hatch.

Can that level of fishing

be sustained long term into the future?

While the big boats land vast quantities of fish,

our small boats are in crisis.

Can they survive the threats to their future?

It's a tricky time

and it's going to be for another few more years yet.

Marine biologist Monty Halls

is going to explore the challenges facing our fishing industry,

but from the inside.

After completing his apprenticeship Monty is about to go it alone.

This is a whole new world, it really is.

But catching fish will be a challenge for a beginner.

'It's really easy to end up the day

'with your pockets turned out completely empty,'

no fish on the deck and wondering what went wrong.

Empty. Imagine if I was doing this to feed my family -

this would be an unmitigated disaster for me.

To make ends meet, he'll crew for local skippers.

Very different working environment for me today.

But rough seas give Monty his toughest test yet...

RETCHING

Try not to spew over the fish!

..and his mission is put in jeopardy.

I thought I'd let everyone down, a dark day for me.

Just how difficult is it to make a living from the sea?

I looked at him and thought,

"Never," you know, "just ain't going to happen, is it?"

Lying at the tip of the Lizard peninsula on Cornwall's south coast,

Cadgwith has been a working fishing cove for more than 700 years.

Today, eight skippers launch their boats off the beach.

They're about to be joined by a novice fisherman.

5.30 in the morning, I'm going to wander down

to the beach in a second, to start prepping all the gear.

There's a certain amount of sort of credibility on the line, I think.

It's all very well having shiny new kit

and declaring that you're going to be this fisherman...

but, er...you've got to walk the walk.

It's June.

Since arriving in Cadgwith three weeks ago,

Monty has been apprentice to 61-year-old Nigel Legge, skipper of Razorbill.

You know what to do now. It's down to the crab now.

You haven't got that many pots,

-but you've got to start somewhere...

-Yeah.

-..so this is it.

Can he earn the respect not just of his mentor,

but of the cove's other fishermen?

You can't be thinking about other things,

you've got to be literally concentrating on what you're doing.

'Got to get his technique right,

'get his pots lined up on the boat.'

He won't be getting tangled up in the gear

-and getting lost.

-HE LAUGHS

Poor old boy!

-See you later, mate.

-Cheers.

It's not easy for Nigel -

Razorbill has never been launched from the cove without him.

It's a strange feeling, really. It is only a boat after all,

but I suppose you do get attached to them, really.

He's on his way now, that's it, job done.

Gone.

Monty hopes that running his own boat will help him to understand

the economic pressures facing our small boat fishermen.

For the next three weeks,

he wants to try and earn at least £100 a day from fishing.

This amount would be enough to cover his main running costs

fuel and bait and make a small profit.

It's a big transition in a short period, this.

It's a very different thing from anything I've ever done before.

It's a big old chunk of knowledge to bite off in three weeks.

Not only have you got to do it and try and operate safely,

I've got to do it to try and operate and actually make some money.

12 freshly-baited pots are attached at intervals

to a length of rope, known as a "string".

Released as the boat is moving, the pots are spread across the seabed,

maximising the bait's exposure to their target - brown crab.

Nigel has advised Monty to shoot his pots onto sandy areas of seabed,

fertile ground for crab, and to make sure that take he avoids areas

where other skippers are already fishing.

Over the course of the day, Monty successfully deploys

48 pots on four strings.

They will be ready to check in two days' time.

-Well, Nige, I survived. I think that's one of the keys.

-Yeah, you've done all right.

Whether we'll find the pots again is another matter!

Everything you told me, Nige, everything you taught me,

doing stuff slowly was the key.

You've got bait in the pots, they're good pots,

they're in the water and it'll be quite interesting even for me.

-Who knows?

-Random pot placement as well.

Yeah, that's going to be very random, I think.

-Can I buy you a cup of tea?

-A cup of tea and a jam and cream scone! It'd be very nice.

-Excellent.

I might even have one of those doughnuts, actually.

-I might have a jam and cream scone.

-Yeah.

This is the morning I haul my pots for the first time.

You can see the fleet behind me. The guys are all bustling about,

all just getting ready to go out for the day.

I think there's considerable interest in actually how I get on,

you know, how many crabs I put up.

I'm a totally random factor here,

so it'll be really interesting, not just for me,

but for everyone else to see how many crabs I get today.

And we're off.

Down to Monty today, really.

Providing he finds the pots, if he remembers where he puts them!

He'll be all right. He can't do no more - he baited the pots,

he put them out, you can't do no more than that.

The pots are ready to be hauled.

It's Monty's first opportunity to earn some money.

Come on, where are you?

Previously, Nigel taught Monty to take marks from coastal features to find his pots.

Monty forgot to do this when he deployed his pots two days ago.

Come on!

If I wanted to go and be a shepherd, I would probably struggle,

you know, or a pig farmer, or I don't know, a chicken...whatever.

I would struggle because I don't know the job.

It's no different from Monty coming to our world, if you like.

It's easy when someone else is doing the job,

but when you've got to do it on your own and try and remember...

Because out there everything looks the same, and trying to gauge

where you put them pots takes a lot of figuring out.

It's really easy to get it wrong

and to end up the day

with your pockets turned out completely empty,

no fish on the deck and wondering what went wrong.

An hour later, Monty is still searching, wasting precious fuel.

The sea feels a very different place without Nigel on board.

I really do need to find these buoys.

They're out here somewhere.

Got one on the bow, thank goodness!

The relief is considerable.

It's easy to forget the sort of stress of trying to find

where the pots are, that this is the first time I'm hauling my pots.

It's a huge moment for me.

One crab, not going to set the world on fire...

but that's a keeper.

You know, there's an awful lot gone into that crab,

a lot of time, a lot of effort by Nige,

and I think it's of a size, so... there we go.

Come on, fella.

A shellfish wholesaler visits the cove each day

to buy the fishermen's catch.

Monty will be selling to the same wholesaler.

He'll need to catch around 75kg of crab

to hit his £100 daily target.

For commercial reasons, the wholesaler has a minimum landing weight

unless Monty lands at least 15kg,

his catch will not be bought.

Nothing in that one.

To conserve juvenile stocks,

-undersized crabs must be returned to the sea.

-Back he goes.

No, too small.

Another empty pot.

So far...

four pots up, one crab.

Monty's first 12 pots yield just two saleable crabs.

The other strings are equally disappointing.

Empty. Imagine if I was doing this to feed my family

and have bills to pay and a mortgage -

this would be an unmitigated disaster for me.

We all have this romantic notion of fishing, don't we?

And I did to a degree. There's nothing romantic about this.

From 48 pots, Monty has caught just five kilos of crab.

He has fallen well short of the wholesaler's minimum landing requirement.

Monty can only watch as the other skippers sell their catch.

I genuinely thought at the start of this little fishing phase,

having been taught by Nige, that I would turn over enough

to at least cover my costs.

500 kilos is an outstanding day -

I caught 5kg.

It's embarrassing more than anything...

and you know, very sobering about how much I've still got to learn.

Monty is beginning to realise how hard it is to earn a living

as a small boat fisherman.

'Everyone's been through it, but a lot of us,'

it was passed down from the older generation, if you like,

you know, where to go, where to catch fish,

and a lot of it you find trial and error yourself.

And you aren't going to learn that in three weeks.

It's not going to happen.

'Lots of little things add up to doing the job properly.'

The way the bait is put in, the size of the bait,

where the pots are put, obviously.

'You need guile and perseverance and tenacity,

'and you need to...'

I was going to say get inside the mind of a crab.

It's probably a very small space.

You begin to understand the way they work.

You know, I know the tides and the wind and you just...

That's just local knowledge.

But local knowledge is closely guarded.

'Never tell anybody anything, keep everything under your hat.'

If you let slip that you've had a decent catch,

you can be sure to find three boats there the next morning

because everybody's fairly desperate.

'Some fishermen will talk quite openly about what they've caught

'and some won't say a word.'

You can always ask them in the pub about midnight. You might find something out...

but...you've got to read in-between the lines as well, you know.

-You just... It's all part of the game.

-HE LAUGHS

It's all part of the game.

It's day four.

The weather has turned

and the beach is deserted.

For today at least,

no boats will be going to sea.

It's my first proper blow in Cadgwith

and it's pretty uncompromising out there.

So for today, none of the fleet will be going anywhere

and it's another day on the beach of not earning any money.

And that just adds to the pressure, and I can feel this urge

to try and get out there, to try and push Razorbill out,

into the swell and into the waves. Could I do it, could I not do it?

Those decisions are made every day by every single one of these skippers

and it's all part of that pressure to get out and potentially put yourself in a dangerous situation.

Skipper John Tonkins, known locally as Tonks,

is repairing gear in his workshop.

You'll go out when it's fairy rough, won't you, Tonks?

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

It's just today, it's tide as well,

-big spring tide...

-Right.

-Wind.

But that's quite a lot of pressure on you, isn't it,

to stand on the beach and think, "I've got to get out today"?

The biggest pressure is probably walking away and saying, "No, I'm not going," on the iffy days.

What are your costs of running that boat, how would you break that down?

-Extortionate.

-Right.

Insurance...

..diesel...

bait...

crew wages...

gear...

..keeping the whole cove running - winch fees, tractor fees,

tractor insurance. I know we all pay it as a unit,

but it's still a cost. It all needs to be taken into consideration.

-Those costs don't go away, do they?

-No, no. There's still the insurance.

-If I sit there for three weeks, the insurance still gets paid.

-Yeah.

You've just got to go every day you can.

Tomorrow might be windy, or the whole of November might be windy.

Because you've just got to keep plugging away.

-So why do you do it?

-I don't know.

You've got to love the job to do it,

for sure, but it is a way of life.

As you will find here, it takes a bit of beating.

Britain's inshore fishing fleet is made up

of nearly 6,000 small boats,

each under 10 metres in length.

Unlike deep-sea trawlers

inshore boats are at the mercy of the weather.

Without the protection of a harbour wall,

Cadgwith's fleet is particularly vulnerable.

On average, the boats are forced to remain ashore for four months a year.

While this prevents over-fishing

it makes for an unpredictable, and often precarious, livelihood.

But making a living is not always what drives fishermen to sea.

The main thing about it was the freedom...

..the sudden freedom from the land and everything to do with it,

and it's still the same for me when I untie the boat in the morning

and I turn out through the gaps and head out to sea and that's it,

I put the land and everything to do with it behind me.

'You're allowed to be yourself

'and you don't really have to be anybody else to do anything.'

You don't have to wear a suit because that's what you need.

You've got to put oilers on, only just to protect you

from the weather, but that's your suit, you know.

You've got that sort of certain amount of freedom

where you can decide to go where you want to go and off you steam,

you know, you've got that choice.

So that helps you be yourself and I think that's a good thing.

Being yourself is a well good thing, I think.

The weather has settled.

After two days ashore, the fishermen get back to work.

I'm always really nervous in the morning, coming down to the beach,

because of all the activity going on

and I don't want to make mistakes and things.

You get a bit tense before the day's fishing,

and then of course you nose out at the cove, look where you are.

It's just so, so beautiful.

Lovely place to have your office.

Not having been hauled for three days,

Monty's first pots produce a good return.

Now that is a decent crab. Big cock crab,

that's probably...

£1.50?

Wahey! My debut lobster.

It's funny, the financial return of the lobster

compared to the crabs is... God, there's just no comparison, really.

It's an animal that takes a very long time to get to this length -

this is probably, I don't know, seven, eight years old.

Over six hours, Monty successfully hauls all 48 pots.

Confident he will meet the minimum landing weight,

Monty heads back to the cove.

On the beach, veteran skipper Phil Burgess casts a critical eye

over his haul.

For me, intuitively, I'm quite pleased with myself, I'm thinking, "This is good stuff."

You're chuffed you are, aren't you?

But some of those are a bit white. If you take the colour

-you can see the difference, can't you?

-Yeah.

-You want them a bit darker, there's a lot of water in there.

-What does it mean when they're white?

He's changed his shell and he's starting to harden up a bit.

You want it to be more of this colour, really.

Same with that one, see the difference?

So it's kind of quality, not just quantity, is it?

Yeah, yes.

So if you were out and pulled up something like that,

for you that would just go straight back?

I would chuck it back. I wouldn't bother with that.

I come round the corner of the cove feeling pleased with myself

and then duly get crushed on the beach, that's what it's like.

-If you weren't told, you wouldn't know, would you?

-No, exactly.

That's what it's about, you see the difference.

Soft-shelled and full of water,

the unsaleable crabs are returned to the sea.

They need to be out there, but it is very much

part of the process of crab fishing on a small scale.

Individually, you are hand sorting your catch

and ones that are of low quality, even if they're good size,

they go straight back until they are of good quality.

And out there in that bay,

this fleet has been doing that for centuries

and that's why I think the crab populations round here

remain fairly healthy.

Having returned some of his crabs,

Monty is now unsure whether he has reached

the 15kg minimum landing weight.

16 kilos of crab. I am in business.

That's the minimum limit that Harveys will take.

The other skippers are landing big catches,

but they are tight-lipped about their success.

No-one particularly wants to tell anyone else what they caught,

of course, because everyone is sort of vying for the same grounds.

So you've got to be a bit canny about telling people how much you caught.

So, Mark, how much did you catch today?

A little bit less than yesterday.

Right. There we are.

Lovely, thank you very much, thank you.

Monty has sold his first catch, 16 kilos of crab, and a lobster.

His return is just £25, but it's an improvement.

It's Day 7.

To supplement his income while his pots are left fishing,

Monty has found paid work as crew for Tonks.

Yeah, obviously you know, this boat's different to Razorbill,

bigger, we work it two-handed.

Hopefully today we'll haul 350 pots, further offshore,

it will all be probably a bit awe inspiring to start off with.

We can't afford to sit around doing nothing, got to get on with the job.

Tide waits for no man.

Working onboard one of the cove's most successful shellfish boats,

today is an opportunity for Monty to learn how a decent return

can be made from crab fishing.

Very different working environment for me today.

It's on a larger scale, kit hurtling off here,

the roll of the boat is a lot different. A big old swell's coming into us today.

22-year-old crewman, Brett, was born and raised in Cadgwith.

His family has been fishing for generations.

And so you stack how many high?

You put six at the front and then three or four lots of four,

then a six and a three, so it's all a bit...

Blimey, blimey, complicated.

Monty is fishing in the dangerous tidal waters around Lizard Point for the first time.

Incredibly dramatic place

and there's a reason that the pots are here.

You've got these tides, some of the strongest tides in the UK

and they're sweeping the reefs all the time, bringing food to the lobsters.

So it's a very, very rich environment.

But Razorbill doesn't belong out here, it really doesn't.

Over the course of the day, 300 pots will be dragged off the boat.

You do not want to get caught up in that, you really don't.

-If a pot comes towards you, just stick your foot out.

-Right.

Been on board half an hour, 40 minutes. I'm shattered,

and we've done as many pots as I'll do all day on Razorbill.

Very, very efficient, the way everything is laid out,

this system has evolved over years, you know.

Quite easy, isn't it? 100 pots down the line,

you've already got the gist of where it all goes.

Tonks has recently had some bad news.

After four years as his crewman, Brett has handed in his notice.

He'll soon be leaving the cove to skipper a boat

servicing offshore wind farms in Cumbria.

It's good money and hopefully I'll be able to put some aside

towards a boat for myself.

I suppose it's something you've got to do.

-You've got to go away.

-Got to go away from the cove to earn.

Do you think it'll happen for you? Do you think you'll end up getting a boat?

Yeah, it's going to happen one day, I don't know when.

-That's the problem.

-And out of Cadgwith?

-I want to, yeah, it's my home, been there since I was born, so...

-Yeah.

I'm sure there's somebody out there who wants to travel the world(!)

-See the sights(!)

-Glamour(!)

-Go on regular mini cruises.

-Yeah, someone who wants to live the dream!

Fishermen do not earn a fixed salary.

Instead, skipper and crew take their allotted share of each day's catch.

So, Tonks, as we're closing down the lid on the days' work,

what do you think we've taken today, roughly?

Probably about £400.

What percentage of that is mine?

-25%.

-25%, that's pretty much the standard sort of crewing rate?

Yeah, yeah.

I've hit my £100 for the today, which is great news.

Today's earnings are split four ways,

a quarter for each for the crew, the remainder reinvested in the boat.

I know my limits and my limits are Razorbill at the moment,

I don't feel that I could be running a boat like this.

It's too technical, too much expertise involved,

too much multi-tasking going on and I need to be inshore in Razorbill

learning my trade, just the same way Brett had to,

just the same way Tonks had to, as all the lads on the beach had to.

Today, Tonks has landed around half a tonne of crab

from several hundred pots.

These are Tonks's.

With brown crab fetching around £1.20 a kilo,

hundreds of pots - thousands of pounds of investment -

are needed to make a decent living as a crab fisherman.

As a novice, Monty has neither the finances to invest,

nor the time to work more pots.

To reach his £100-a-day target, he needs to change tactics.

It became pretty obvious with the number of pots that I was fishing

that there was just no way I could catch enough crab.

The boats out there will catch half a tonne of crab,

I was catching 10 kilos.

If I'd carried on like that, I would have been bankrupt very quickly.

Monty targets lobster, which is five times more valuable than crab.

Nigel advises him to use the heavily salted bait that lobsters prefer,

and to move his pots onto rocky ground close to the cliffs.

You can see as I'm moving in ever closer to the rocks -

there's a rationale behind that - the lobsters like the hard ground,

but of course there is a bit of a risk in it for me as well.

Lots of hidden hazards here.

You've got the swell forcing you up against the rocks.

But it's that balance of risk and return

that every fisherman in Britain plays every day.

I'm sort of starting to move into a different league now, I hope.

I've got a string close in shore there, I've got two strings

close in shore there, hard up against the cliffs and the rocks.

And I'm confident my catches are going to go like that,

when I recover them in a couple of days.

It's Day 10.

With the pots requiring time to fish before hauling,

Monty has found work crewing for local skipper, Danny Philips.

It's 5.30 in the morning, just got up

and I've got to be down on the beach by about 6.15

to go out with Danny.

And it's a full day's work with Danny, it's well known.

We're going a little way offshore, it's predicted sort of force five,

force seven, so it's going to be a tough one today.

-RADIO:

-'And the UK outlook for the next 24 hours,

'strong to gale force south-westerly winds, but becoming stormy.

'There are warnings of gales... '

The beach is deserted except for Danny and his crewman Perry.

The conditions out at sea cannot be good,

Scorpio is the only boat heading out today.

Most of the fleet use pots to hunt lobster and crab.

Danny is different, he fishes only with nets.

So we're netting for monk and we're doing it a long way off shore. It's going to be a big day for me.

This is proper fishing.

Danny has reluctantly agreed to take Monty on as crew.

Fishing offshore in difficult conditions

is no place for a beginner.

Nets cast two days ago are now ready to be hauled.

Forming a metre-high curtain a mile across the sea floor,

these nets are designed to catch bottom-dwelling fish like cod,

ray, and today's target, monkfish.

I've always said, working is for people that don't know how to catch fish.

It isn't like a job to me,

I enjoy it, I just love catching fish,

and nobody here to tell you what to do, you are your own man out here.

In some European waters,

monkfish stocks have been severely depleted by deep-sea trawlers.

By contrast, those caught in the south-west

with static nets, like Danny's,

have become the most sustainable stocks in Europe.

-How much is that worth, Danny?

-20 quid.

20 quid, that's not bad.

Get a few of them and your trip's starting to make sense.

Just over an hour into the trip, Monty is starting to feel unwell.

Imagine doing a Rubik's Cube on a bouncy castle

when you don't feel very well.

That's what this is like.

A few minutes later, his condition has deteriorated further.

Basically, feeling as sick as the proverbial dog at the moment.

Which is really annoying, but nothing you can do about it.

He ain't looking the best.

He's gone a bit green around the gills.

RETCHES VIOLENTLY

You're going to have to go back aft again, Monty.

Safer if you sit back there.

Try not to spew over the fish.

Danny has little sympathy.

He's only halfway through hauling his nets

and won't take Monty back to shore.

I knew I should have never brought him out here.

I don't want to go in.

I've got monk in my nets I want to get out.

It isn't fair on the fish. Just cos he's spewing.

An hour later, Monty is back on his feet and trying to contribute.

But the weather is worsening - and so is his condition.

What happens next ends any further involvement he has onboard.

GASPS

Monty is unconscious, choking on his own vomit. Perry rushes to help.

CHOKING AND MUTTERING

-Got him up?

-Yeah.

-Christ!

We aren't going to lose him, that's the main thing.

If I thought he was going to die on me, I would run him in,

but at the moment I'm more concerned

about the monkfish dying than I am Monty!

As Monty recovers in the bow, Danny fillets his monkfish.

His meticulous care over each one means the region's top chefs

pay a premium for Danny's catch.

This fish is out of water, gutted, cleaned

and is straight into ice and we try to do that as soon as possible.

That monk there now,

you would have a job to get it in any better condition than that.

That will go now straight into this ice.

There, put to bed, job done, shut the hatch, forget about them.

That's the wages there.

Five long hours later, Danny heads for home.

We got done what I wanted to do.

Don't know what Monty thought of it, to tell you the truth, he has struggled a bit today.

I don't think he's got a clue what we've caught.

Poor chap, I feel a bit sorry for him really.

But we're nearly in now, that's the main thing, and he survived.

Today has been a huge setback for Monty.

Unless he can cope with rough conditions at sea

his plan to work as a fisherman for the next six months

is in serious doubt.

Word quickly spreads that Monty has had a bad day.

I was quite surprised he was as sick as he was, to be quite honest,

because he didn't show any sickness aboard my small boat at all.

He wasn't remotely sick.

And he sort of died on the other boat, which wasn't that much bigger.

And he was actually quite ill

and people were quite concerned about him.

Just got in from the day's fishing with Danny.

I've never known anything like that before.

It entirely lived up to expectations, I think.

Quite sort of soul destroying in a way, because I wanted...

I like Danny and I really admire him,

he's one of the...a very, very good fisherman indeed.

To just go there and be useless all day, it felt like

I'd taken a few steps forward with all the stuff I've learnt,

and now I've just took a load of steps back.

It's a long day, an emotional day, and it's nice to be home.

The credibility is that, if you can get over it,

get back in the boat again and have another go,

you'll overcome it in the end, it's to have another go.

The following morning the weather has improved.

Monty is heading out to check his pots

for his new, high value target - lobster.

Here we are, first pot, and that's almost of a size, I think.

You know, that's worth five or six crabs to me, that little lobster.

Two lobster!

For a small boat fisherman who's really struggling,

every lobster's a little nugget.

That's a very nice lobster indeed.

Yep, definitely of a size.

Just a bit too small, such is the lottery of life.

You can go back, have another go.

I think I'm on about ten lobsters today. Nige would be proud.

I do feel I'm beginning to understand what's involved here.

I'm starting to understand the tides and the bait and the substrate

and the different ways of fishing.

All these highly complex opposing factors

that make the difference between catching and not catching.

Literally just come round the corner and what do I see?

The Harveys van's just pulled up, so I've just made it.

..9, 10.

Double figures. Whatever next?

6.6 kilos.

6.6 kilos of lobster, how much is that worth roughly, Gary?

-You're probably looking around sort of £60.

-£60?

-Yeah.

His pots also produced a small return of crab.

-36 kilo.

-36 kilo.

-There you go, Monty.

-Lovely. Thank you, Gary.

-I'm on fire now.

-You're away.

-I'm on fire, there's no stopping me.

-Bigger boat next.

-Yeah! Very true.

-All right, mate. Cheers.

-Righty-o, mate. See you.

With £60 of lobster, plus his crabs,

Monty has finally made £100 from a day's single-handed fishing.

Oh, it felt fantastic because there have been a number of things leading up to that haul -

I've been putting the pots a lot closer in,

and that took a little bit of nerve,

cos you need to get right up to the cliff

and I'd always been wary of this crackling boundary

between the sea and the land, and wrecking Razorbill.

So, yeah, it felt... I suddenly, for the first time

in my whole period in the cove, felt a bit like a fisherman.

Brett, the youngest fisherman in the cove,

is leaving tomorrow for his new job in Cumbria.

You've got to leave the cove to come back to the cove,

if you see what I mean.

If you're going to have your own boat.

-Definitely.

-Right.

Definitely, yeah. Can't, er...

-There's no way I can afford a boat.

-Yeah.

Tonks, Brett's skipper, has yet to find a replacement.

I think he's put an advert in the job centre,

because there's not enough people around the cove and around the area to...

Well, that was going to be one of my questions -

is there like a group, a cohort, of young fishermen that can crew?

Cos it is a skilled job, isn't it?

You don't just jump on board and you can do it straight away, you've got to be trained and...

Down here, we don't have many people doing it.

Down in Cadgwith, down on the Lizard and the surrounding area,

there's not many youngsters doing fishing at the moment.

You're making this quite bold move to go away

and, you know, try to earn a little bit more so you can return.

In ten years' time or so, where do you see yourself?

Hopefully in the cove, doing...

Having a boat like Louis or Martin,

single-handed fishing, enough pots to...

keep myself going, enough nets to...

Will you look like Tonks?

Hope not!

THEY BOTH LAUGH

# Throw up your glasses and let us be merry

# For to roam and to plunder

# It is our intent... #

There are few British fishermen under the age of 40.

If the UK fishing fleet is to survive,

it needs knowledgeable and skilful young men like Brett.

But the unpredictable and often limited income

that inshore fishing provides

means that many feel their only choice is to leave,

for a while at least.

# To the caves in yonder mountain

# Where the robbers retreat. #

Well, the price of houses have gone up cos of the coastal community.

It's disproportionate to...to what people in Cornwall are earning.

There ain't enough houses for locals, you know,

that's the problem.

You've got to go and use your maritime experience

to go and do something else, which is paying a bit more money

to be able to afford to buy a house in the area.

# Oh, Tiger Ridge Won't you give me back?

# Oh, Tiger Ridge... #

As the youngest fisherman in the cove,

Brett's leaving is a setback for Cadgwith,

and for Tonks in particular.

It's finding somebody to replace him is the biggest problem.

You know, they're not easy to come by.

The height of the season and you think, "Ah."

They're not queuing up for jobs -

because it's not everybody's cup of tea, you know.

If you want a job...

If you're trying to get a labourer on a building site,

they're queuing up halfway around the village.

But, really, the job is no different,

it's just your work platform moves around a bit.

Brett could take the boat, you know,

if I went on holiday or went away or whatever, the boat was still working.

To get somebody to that standard again is going to be...

It's going to take quite a bit of time, you know,

it is going to take a bit of time.

# And it's good enough

# For me. #

For small boat skippers, limited to fishing only the inshore waters,

being flexible is the key to survival.

They must change their fishing methods regularly

to take advantage of whatever swims into their territory.

'I am an in-shore fisherman, and I multitask -

'I do lots of different fisheries,'

from red mullet to gill netting,

to tangle netting, lobstering, crabbing.

I can do hand lining.

And the same with any in-shore fleet anywhere -

they can swap over in a couple of hours.

Whatever goes past our doorway.

Sometimes, it goes dead. That's your time to diversify then.

You can't catch any crabs, you'll try and catch a conger eel on a long line or something,

or put some nets out for some monkfish or something, you know?

Swap and change, and hopefully you'll find something.

With his lobster pots now working effectively,

Monty has enlisted the help of local fisherman, Luke Stephens.

Beautiful, sunny morning.

Lovely, isn't it? Lovely. This is my kind of day.

-Very much my kind of day.

-My kind of day, too.

25 years at sea took their toll on Luke's body,

and he's no longer able to fish for a living.

He now spends most of his time on shore making nets,

though his knowledge of the local waters is second to none.

Luke has helped Monty to lay a net to target valuable monkfish.

Look at that, beauty.

That is a nice spider crab.

The net contains plenty of spider crab,

and they soon catch their first fish.

Ya-hey!

So this is a little... Obviously, it's a ray.

-Small-eyed ray, that one.

-Small-eyed ray.

-Is this of a sellable size?

-Yep.

-Nice crab.

-A great crab.

-Yeah, beauty.

Ooh, I can see something white coming, Monty.

Wahey!

-Is that plaice or...?

-Plaice.

Plaice. BIG plaice.

The last 30 feet of the net is being hauled.

Wahey!

He's got one, he's caught a monkfish!

Yes, I've redeemed myself!

Here we are, coming back into the cove.

Do you think that we've had a successful little trip there?

Luke, you have more than produced the goods.

More than produced the goods.

That's by far my best catch, and it's a good mixed catch, isn't it?

-Yeah, it's nice to see.

-Ray, plaice, monk...

A couple of tubs of spider.

You know, that's a good spot, isn't it?

Yeah, I like it up there, a nice little place to go.

-Are you pleased with that?

-I'm well pleased with that,

that's a good little catch.

This is what it's all been about.

I'm just going to the local fishmonger to sell my catch from today.

HE GRUNTS WITH EFFORT

Everything in fishing is heavy!

There we go, my last remaining ounce of strength.

Jonathan Fletcher is both a fisherman and a fishmonger.

After working at sea each day from nearby Porthleven,

he runs Cadgwith's fish shop.

There's a good plaice, £3 a kilo.

So there you are, that fish is worth £3.50 to you.

£3.50, perfect.

The gills are bright red,

the eyes are bright and prominent, not sunken,

it's got slime on it. Look - perfect.

That's what you've got to be looking for.

-What else have you got apart from this wonderful plaice?

-I've got ray.

There you are, three quid. And how many have you got?

-Nine.

-That's 27 quid for a start.

-27 quid.

And there's about 50 mackerel in here.

It's around about £1, £1.20 a kilo.

-Call it 15 quid.

-15 quid.

-Monkfish, then, is £22.

-Yeah.

27, 49 and 15...

64 quid.

-I'll make it £65...

-And I'll buy you a beer.

Buy me a beer next time you see me.

Look at that. Extraordinary. Monty Halls Inc leaps into profit.

Small-boat fishermen survive by adapting to the seasonal changes within their fishery.

But government reforms could soon force them to target specific fish types,

preventing diversification.

The restrictive legislation that's being proposed...

..is going to make life impossible. They are businesses, these boats -

they've got to turn a profit, even if it's a small one.

I don't think the legislators

understand the way that fisherman are,

and I think they've missed a vital point, is that fishermen go fishing

because they're fishermen and not because they're making a profit.

'Yes, it's a worrying time.

'I think not just for us. I think for a lot of fishermen,

'especially the smaller under 10-metre boats.'

We're all waiting with bated breath, to be honest...

for the government's next announcement.

Monty is heading out to haul his pots for the last time.

Beautiful little lobster, look.

Oh, look at that. Now that's the lobster of the day!

Good, it's been getting better, hasn't it? It's been getting better.

To try to understand the financial pressures felt by in-shore fishermen,

for the last three weeks, Monty has attempted to earn a living from the sea.

It's time to add up the figures.

That comes to a grand total of £508.

All that effort. All that time. All that kit.

The gear, which, of course, I would still have to pay for.

I'd have to pay insurance on the boat,

I'd have to contribute to the winch fund,

I'd have to pay for the tractor fund, as well, all of these costs.

So, you know, that's not good. It really isn't.

I couldn't have tried any harder, there's no doubt about that.

This has been a real lesson for me

in the harsh realities of the economics of small-boat fishing.

And I must say, it's just been a real eye opener, an absolute eye opener.

Monty has hauled 500 pots, used nets and lines,

and crewed on other boats.

His aim was to make £100 a day.

He's made just 24.

Though this has been a hypothetical exercise -

he's donating all his earnings to the fishermen

to help cover their overheads -

it has revealed the harsh economic realities

faced by small-boat fishermen.

The margins they deal with are extremely tight -

many are lucky to earn £15,000 a year.

It depends what sort of a living you want.

If you have to finance the sort of mortgage people have these days,

then it's exceedingly difficult.

You can't busk it, you've got to really spend a lot of hours at it,

more hours than any normal person would want to.

If you analyse, at the end of the week,

how much money you have and how many hours it's taken you to get it,

then logically you wouldn't do it.

In the last 20 years,

Britain's in-shore fishing fleet has declined by over a third.

350 small boats leave the industry each year,

their skippers either unable to make a living,

or unwilling to take greater risks for an ever diminishing return.

While Monty may not have succeeded financially,

working the beach as a single-handed fisherman

has earned him greater respect amongst the skippers in the cove.

With one exception.

5.45 in the morning and just about to go back out on Danny's boat.

Now, a very different day today -

it's a lot calmer,

so I'm hoping there won't be the terrific drama there was last time,

but I do have a little secret weapon.

Throwing pharmaceuticals at the problem - seasick tablets.

So I'll take a few of those

and hopefully restore a little dignity and credibility.

We'll see.

It's a real test for Monty.

If he succumbs to seasickness again,

his mission to work within the industry over the coming months will be all but over.

-Right, Monty, you get on here.

-I will, I will.

Nothing yet in this tier of nets.

We're sort of a third of the way through.

This one here has been down one night less

and last time we hauled it, it was very good.

-Crawfish is what we could do with catching, Monty.

-Crawfish.

That'd be interesting, wouldn't it?

We've only had two this week.

Unbelievable. Not a bloody thing. Not even a crab here.

Utterly dead.

-Something's coming up.

-Oh, hello. Here we go.

-What you got? A wrasse!

-A wrasse.

With three-quarters of the net empty,

four crawfish - a highly valuable rarity in these waters -

are a very welcome sight.

So suddenly the net's starting to make a lot more sense, you know?

And it's all to do with the ground it's laid over

and if it falls over hard ground where there's a few of the animals around.

But as I said, it's one of those irresistible attractions of this

is as you peer down into the blue water,

you've no idea what's going to come up towards you.

Danny, is that kind of your incentive as you look over the side,

you just never know what's coming up?

-I'm willing them up all the time.

-Yeah.

-All the time, just willing things to come up.

-Yeah.

I was hoping we might see a crawfish today, actually.

I knew when I shot this one two days ago

that it went over a little pinnacle and I was thinking...

-Fairly confident, yeah.

-"There could be craw on that."

And is it four you've had, three?

We've had four today -

-one we had to throw back cos he was undersize.

-Right.

The fish caught by trawlers, working far out to sea,

can be many days old by the time it's landed.

Fish caught from day boats like Danny's is the freshest available

and can fetch a higher price on the market.

I suppose this is an advantage you have, Danny,

over the boats that operate off shore.

In that you're literally turning around in a day, of course -

-you're catching and delivering fresh fish to the quayside.

-Yes.

You know, that fish that literally hours before has been swimming around.

Well, I would have thought there's a very good chance

somebody will be eating that fish...

not this evening, but tomorrow evening, anyway.

Tomorrow evening, right.

Only the tail and the cheeks of the monkfish are of value,

fetching Danny around £10 a kilo.

Danny has allowed Monty to fillet one.

So I'm going in there, up there and come back to there.

-I will pay you for this fish, I will buy it off you if I screw it up.

-OK.

-Right, then stop there. Go into the other side now.

-OK.

-Try and get right in around...

-Right.

-Above the flesh, you've got to be, right back to its navel.

-Right.

-So just trim through here and there.

-No problem.

So what's that worth there, Danny?

Well, it WAS worth 20 quid.

THEY BOTH LAUGH

No, you've done a good job.

On one level, you could say, of course, financially, that was a good day for me,

cos £60/£70 is my share of the catch.

But, of course, that trip wasn't really about the money for me -

it was laying to rest that ghost of what happened last time on Danny's boat

and I felt really let down by it and I feel kind of vindicated now.

There's always the elephant in the room

about whether I can operate when it's rough.

I'll only find that out as the season progresses.

But all in all, not a bad day.

Next time, Monty has a close call out at sea...

Swivel out, swivel out.

When that pot hit me,

there was nothing that I could have done about it, absolutely nothing.

He heads out with the competition and fishes on a much bigger scale.

You're not quite halfway yet - another 600 to go.

Good grief, that's an outrage!

Your spider is very good.

I only catch the very best.

After following his catch to the continent,

Monty asks why we don't eat more seafood at home.

If you tell someone that what they're about to eat is exquisite,

and then you put THAT in front of them,

that's the reaction we need to overcome.