west coast flatty hunt

[col]

Paul,

Just to put my SOS head on for a minute.

Thornies have seen a major decline on the west coast and to be honest they taste YAK.( I am told as I have never killed one)

Even the landing figures are hard to make sense of as all skates and rays are bundled under one heading. That means there are no accurate figures regarding their stocks and more importantly how sustainably they are fished.

Northeast...I will sort your lack of a common skate before the summers out...thats a promise. Although the spurdog may be harder ...caught a dozen or so in 2006 but only 1 in 2007 despite the same number of days at sea.

The one to really go for is a blackmouth dogfish

Cheers
Dave

i only mentioned the fact that this fella was at the pier waiting for a boat to come in and unload its catch of prawns and skate wings,i for one would never kill a skate of any species but this had nothing to do with us,merely mentioned it as he was quite a nice fella to crack on with and give us a lot of info on some surrounding marks

[northeast1]

Its ok Col we never getting at you just pointing out it was a shame thats all.

I myself have caught dogfish from Shields and Hendon in the last 2 years and my mate had a Thorni ray in Dec from Seaham pier.