One set of pots disappeared in circumstances I am not happy with: they were tangled up with another fisherman’s gear, and try as I might, I could not lift them. The next time I went out, his pots had been moved and mine had gone.
Probably, he cut them off and discarded them, but this is not on: the fishing lore is to retie anyone elses’ ropes if you have to cut them.
The net has been good , but finding a lull long enough to be sure of setting it and getting it back has been hard. Windguru has been invaluable, and remarkably accurate.
Weed has been a curse, as the offshore winds have kept it lingering in the best bays.
I took advantage of a 15% Christmas discount and bought a Malibu MiniX as a netter, but am having too much fun with it elsewhere to take it down to the beach and servitude yet.
Have been reading Twenty Years A-Growing by Maurice O’Sullivan, about his childhood on the Blaskets, off Dingle, and am taken back at Monk’s Cave, where I used to have a summer hut made of driftwood and would set pots in the rocks...
When June came, it was very fine. It would gladden your heart to look out to sea, the sea-raven standing on the rocks with his wings outspread, the ring-plover and the sea-pie foraging among the stones, the sea-gulls picking the limpets, the limpet itself relaxing its grip and the periwinkle the same, the crab and the rock-pool trout coming out of their holes in the stillness of the sea to take a draught of the sweet-smelling air. So that it was no wonder for the sinner to feel a happiness of heart as he travelled the road.
When we had our pots ready we turned our faces west to Inish-na-Bro. It was a wild backward place, great dizzy cliffs above my head in which hundreds and thousands of birds were nesting, the guillemot, whippeen, common puffin, red puffin, black-backed gull, petrel, sea-raven, breeding together in the wild cliffs; seals in couples here and there sunning themselves on the rocks, each bird with its own cry and the seals with their moan, a dead calm on the sea but for the little ripples moving in and making a glug-glag up through the crevices of the rocks.
I was sitting in the middle of the curragh, taking heed of all around me, as happy as any mother’s boy. Now and then I saw a puffin coming in from the sea with a bundle of sprats across its bill, and I began to reflect on the life of birds, what great wisdom they have to provide for their young. What was the difference between the nature of man, the nature of the birds, and of the seals? We were fishing lobster to nourish ourselves, the puffin providing for its chick, and the seal stretched out on the rock above after its labours. How strange is the way of the world!
When we had the pots laid in the sea, we went ashore on the island.It was a delight to be in it, the stones ready to burst with the heat, clumps of thrift on every inch of the ground, and bright flowers blooming. I sat down, the sea-birds settled around me, many more flying through the air with a great clamour as they came in from the sea, a haze floating across every hill and hanging at the foot of every cliff, a path of gold stretching out before me as far as Bray Head and every ripple glistening in the sunshine.
I caught a fine cock lobster today, so will be able see the new year in with a fine gift from the old.