Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to Seafood Matters. Thank you for
joining us again. My guest today is Jack Robertson. When
people talk about the development of square mesh panels in
the fishing industry, Jack Robertson's name is never far from
the conversation. So I am absolutely thrilled to welcome Jack
to Seafood Matters. It's means so much to me, genuinely,
Hi Jack, thank you for coming on.
Speaker 2: Oh lovely, Jim Lovely, that's a fantastic introduction and it's
great to talk to you. We haven't actually talked for
many a long year, and we should have been. But yes,
I certainly had good fun with, say, the square mesh development,
and it was a wonderful time that I had in
the Marine lab in Aberdeen, developing the whole idea and
doing the experiments on it, and then eventually getting it
introduced to legislation to help the fishing industry.
Speaker 1: I was never on board during the trials, but still
felt part of it as I believed in it, mainly
because I had the utmost respect for you. I'm the
fisherman you worked with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jim, listen, you've said it. My initial experiment started
on the research vessels, but I quickly needed to get
into going on board with the commercial fishermen, because not
only could they produce more fish, but I could also
show them what was going on with the underwater cameras,
with the square mession, with their own nets, and every
one of the skippers, and I sailed with many, many
many skippers. To a man, they were all brilliant, absolutely brilliant,
welcomed me on board. We had a fabulous time, worked
very hard, Jim, because it was twenty four to seven,
it was a commercial trip. We just fished with them
as they would fish normally, and we just changed the
court ends as required to satisfy the experiment. We measured
the fish as they were working up the fish, and
they could have been nicer, could have been better, every single.
Speaker 1: One of them. It was brilliant, fantastic, Jack. When you
mentioned that the research vessels, there's a guy I've done
some recordings with, but I would class them as a
friend as well. He's an officially scientist in Iceland, Chap
Young Christiansen. Now when your men, it just comes to
my mind when you mentioned the research vessels, because I
mean John's and his eighties now obviously long time retired.
That like yourself, he had a real passion and an
interest in what he did. And his view about the
research vessels he reckoned that the way he put it,
he says they were started building nice new research vessels
because they didn't want to be going out to see
on dirty trawlers. That he reckoned that was the biggest
mistake they made because what it actually what actually, what
it actually did, was it to fishermen and scientists apart.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jim, you've said it all, and it was the
best thing I did. Was started going away with say,
the fishermen, not I'm not speaking against the research vessels
because actually the first square mesh experiment was undertaken on
a research vessel, the small gold Seeker, and then the Klipeia.
I did a few trips of square mesh on that
and the skippers and the crew of the research vessels
were all ex fishermen and they they were fascinated by
the square mesh and they helped me enormously. Were they
were fabulous and in what they did in the development
of this square mesh. But they were restricted, Jim, by
the civil service requirement for almost a nine to five
on on the vessels, so you had to stop to
give them their the rest and so forth. And that
was the system we worked to on the research vessels
and there was no changing that. But what I needed
was volume volume of fish, particularly lots of small fish,
to see them escaping. And that's why I moved on
to the the commercial vessels. And and it was certainly
the best thing that I could have done for the
development of the experiments and the idea.
Speaker 1: And what was the atmosphere in the industry, Like then Zark.
Speaker 2: The atmosphere was I this is the late nineteen seventies
early nineteen eighties, and they were going through quite a
good period. The fish stocks were large, and the atmosphere
was actually quite good gym. It was a positive atmosphere.
There were new boats being built, there was quite a
bit of money in the industry. But things were beginning
to happen in that stock assessments were suggesting the need
for quotas. Quotas were being introduced, which the industry obviously
were a bit concerned about. And then quotas were were
reduced gradually and so forth, So gradually the atmosphere changed
to one of tremendous optimism with lots of fish catching
potential and opportunities to fewer opportunities, And that's why they
became interested in the whole idea of saving juvenile fish,
which is what the Squaremish was all about. I wanted
to save the juveniles to pump back into the fish stocks,
to enhance the fish stocks for the fishing industry. That
was my burning ambition all the time. It was to
help the industry. And when they saw that come along,
they became very interested, actually, And there was a great
atmosphere of optimism developed through the nineteen eighties as I
went on board more and more of the commercial boats
and met more skippers, and more skippers talked about it,
and there was certainly a tremendous feeling of optimism that
perhaps something could be done to bring the stocks back
a little bit, because by the late nineteen eighties, the
hardock stocks in particular had to decreased markedly, so opportunities
for the industry were becoming rather more difficult. And of course,
you know, we were unfortunately still in the EU and
the EUS dictating what we had to do in terms
of catch limits and so forth, and boats had to
be taken out and then gradually there was a pall
came over the industry of real unhappiness. Jim, I don't
know whether you would agree with me that it was
a period of a bit of unhappiness about the way
things were going.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember back when you were doing the trials. Oh,
you explained how and showed I'm sure I saw some
of the videos how it wasn't just a case of
square mesh panels. More fish would get out. I'm not
right and saying when they were trying to get out
of the diamond net they lost a lot of scales
picking up infections, and so there was much better for
the fish when they escape of even the small fish
escaping escape from us square mesh rather than a diamond Yeah,
that's correct.
Speaker 2: My colleagues John Maine and Graham Sangster, who by the way,
developed the separator troll, which is another great story about
the development of that. But they were concerned about the
survival of juvenile fish escaping from diamond mesh. That's what
they started on. And then I asked them to look
at the square mesh as well, and their results showed
that survival rates from the square mesh were improved for sure,
and you can understand why, just as you described it, Gim,
the diamond meshes are tight closed and a juvenile fish
trying to escape out through wriggling away like crazy, and
you can see the scales flying off them in clouds
of scales in some cases, and yet coming out of
the square mesh. It was both pop out straight out
through the square, hardly touching the sides, hardly touching the
mesh at all, and no evidence of clouds of scales
running down the length of the cod end. And of
course we were filming all this with a remote control
television vehicle which was controlled from the surface, so it
was flying alongside the court ends and observing all the
experimental cod ends that I used, and it was quite fascinating.
The thing that started me off was I began diving
in the middle nineteen seventies, began diving with John and
Graham on troll gear, so they were looking at design
improvements to design of troll nets, etc. That was the
remit at the time in the lab, or at least
in the gear section of the lab, and that diving
really taught me a lot about net design. It also
taught me a lot about how many juvenile fish were
being destroyed. Now, in discussions with a colleague in the
lab Stand German, he told me in the late nineteen
seventies that's something in the region of seventy percent of
what was captured in the North Sea of harrick and whiting.
I'm talking about here, seventy percent of what was caught
was discarded over the side as dead juvenile fish. So
this was babies that didn't get a chance to spawn.
This was babies who were not feeding other fish species,
because the ecosystem requires lots of different species around and
they feed on each other, and that's important. Caught in
the southern North Sea on sand deals sand eals were
fished out. Where did the cod go? They disappeared out
of the Dogger Bank Doga bank. Cord fishery was one
of the biggest in the world. It's no longer, it
hasn't been for thirty forty fifty years because of the
sandal fishery. So their food was taken from them. So
these juvenile haddick and whiting, which could have been potentially
food for cord and for haddock themselves, for adult haddock
and adult whiting and so forth, it wasn't available to them.
So it was a huge waste, huge waste, and it
had to stop. But the way that the government wanted
to stop it was by increasing the diamond mash size,
but that didn't work. You were still getting discards. If
you increased from seventy eighty to ninety two hundred mil,
there were still discards, maybe not as many as there
had been before, but nonetheless way too many to accept.
Speaker 1: Yeah, really interesting, but Jimmy it was.
Speaker 2: And of course the diving on the next with John
and Graham showed all that to me, and I thought,
I've got to do something about this. I really have to,
and you dead, well, yeah, I mean it's something simple
like turning diamond mesh onto the square. But actually there
was something I did before that. I had to look
at hexagonal mesh six six sided mesh, which is when
you turn it a certain way, you can end up
with a rectangle. And I thought, oh, now a rectangle
is going to be good because it'll let more juvenile
fish out, but it'll let the flatfish out as well.
And I had a look at that and that was
really good. But then I thought, m hexagonal mesh no,
too expensive and not very practical. For mending and so forth.
So it had to be What I wanted to develop
was something, and I think you'll agree with me, Jim.
It had to be practical, and it had to be
acceptable to the industry. So I moved on to the
square mesh and began trials, many many hundreds of trials,
many many hundreds of toes over different horsepower vessels, say nets,
troll nets, big and small vessels with full square mesh cottage.
Now get that, Jim, it's full square mesh cottage. And
I did. I did that, and the results were unbelievable. However, however,
there was a potential problem in that if the square
mesh was too big, you would lose too many marketable fish,
and I didn't want that. The industry can't cope with
any conservation device which on a whul By Hall basis
restricts the amount of adult fish that they can capture.
In other words, if the adult fish was escaping, what's
the point in spending money and fuel and towing for
hours and hours an end if you're getting you know,
ten boxes as opposed to of adult fish, as oppos
to thirty or forty or fifty boxes.
Speaker 1: Of adult fish.
Speaker 2: But at the same but at the same time let
the juvenile fish escape, so that that became that became
an issue which I had to look at very very carefully.
And actually the best size for whitefish trolls of square
mesh was eighty millimeters, which with which compared roughly to
about one hundred millimeter diamond, but it didn't compare in
terms of the release of juvenile fish. The square eighty
still reduced more juvenile hrdrican whiting, so you can see that.
You know, it was a long it was a long
process of experimentation to find to find a mesh size
that was acceptable to the industry and by the way,
getting the industry to accept it as well. But but
that was helped enormously by these fabulous skippers that I
went away with on on on their their boats and
you know, just dropping and I love to name drop
when it comes to square mesh. I mean Tom Harks,
you know, he he was, he was, he was on
board excuse the pun for square mesh, you know. And
and I was away with I was away with John
Smith on the heather Sprigue. He was another great supporter
of the square mesh and and and I could go
on and on about it, you know, in terms of names.
But people are sure that supported the square mesh were
were very helpful in persuading the industry, in getting the
idea cross, in showing results in discussing it. The likes
of John Ashworth was sometime. Do you remember John Ashworth? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
he was. He was very vocal in support of the industry.
Everything that that man did was totally in support of
the industry.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I remember that. But then it's interesting, Jacket
You've mentioned Tom hark Is, because it was just the
very person I was going to mention just now because
I remember your trials. Obviously, I did a lot of
business with Tom and all that Orkney boats, and I
remember Tom saying and just exactly what you were saying
with it, but it was eighty mullimeter and he was
I think the trials were ninety on the Diamond and
he reckoned not on the square, sorry, And he was
concerned that there were letting just everything that you said,
mature fish escape and it wasn't going to work. But
I'm right in saying that, which I thought was crazy
at the time, that they weren't allowed to come down
because from ninety because because of the regulations on mesh size,
and they wouldn't they wouldn't budge on the fact that
square mesh was much greater. As you said there, eighty
was the equivalent to one hundred and probably ninety what
would be equivalent to maybe one hundred and ten or
one hundred and twenty, But they wouldn't let them take
it down. Is that right? Am I remembering that correctly?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. It's a complicated issue, but essense,
you're right. I mean, we're talking about the civil servants
in head Office. They had control of the introduction of legislation,
so we were, you know, the scientists in the marine lab.
We're merely putting our data to them and they decided
from there, so any recommendations that we made would not
necessarily been taken.
Speaker 1: Up by them.
Speaker 2: But I do recall a conversation with one civil servant
who said, when I put to him that the eighty
millimeter would be the best for the fishing industry in
terms of retaining marketable fish but still allowing a much
higher escape rate of the juvenile fish than nineteen one
hundred mili diamond. And he said, no, we can't let
them go down to eighty because they might cheat. Now
I found that a fascinating statement, and I mean it
actually demonstrates a lack of understanding of a civil servants
sitting at a desk in Edinburgh compared to us out
there on the fishing boats with the fisherman doing the stuff.
And I asked him. I asked him, I said, what
do you mean precisely by they would cheat with it? Oh? Well,
can't they close the meshus up and restrict the And
I said, well, okay, they could perhaps snotter you know
what I mean by snortering accordagem just tying a rope
rounded and closing the meshes up. And I said, well, okay,
you know a fisherman could do that. But then why
would he do that if the idea of eighty millimeter
or even ninety milimeters square mesh is sold to the industry.
And he looked at me and he said, you know
what do you mean? I said, well, look, we've got
to undertake a teaching process of of getting across the
idea to the industry and showing them the data, showing
them the video film and persuading them to use the
square mesh in the manner that it was meant to
be used. And I said, and this is the telling factor.
I said, Look, even even if thirty percent of the
fishing industry were to cheat with the square mesh caught end,
you would still with the remaining seventy percent, be something
in the region of sixty to seventy percent better off
in terms of the destruction of juvenile fish in reducing
the destruction of juvenile fish. And he looked at me,
he said, is that right? And I said, well, you know,
as far as one can one can calculate. And of
course these calculations are very difficult to make, Jim, you know,
it's stock assessment work and so on. Is open to
all sorts of questions. But basically that was the argument
that even if some of them did snorter their the
squaremish caught in, there would still be a benefit in
terms of increasing the spawning stock biomass by allowing the
juvenile fish to escape. Well, okay, so this argument goes
on for years and years and years, and I'm talking.
My first filming of square mesh happened in September nineteen
eighty one, and from there it took ten years to
get the square mesh panel into legislation, and interestingly, Jim,
the panel for prontrolls when it was introduced in nineteen
ninety one was eighty millimeters. The panel for whitefish trolls
was ninety millimeters. So you know, the acceptance of eighteen
milimeter was okay eventually, but only for the prontrol that
that ten year period. GYM was extremely frustrating because within
about four years five years of nineteen eighty one, I
had gathered a huge amount of data on squaremesh cought ents,
and I wanted and felt that it would be the
best for the industry to introduce squaremish cought ens at
eighty millimeters. And I wish that had happened, I really do,
But there was no persuading the civil servants who controlled
the legislation. No matter how well we put across our
argument or data, etc. There was no way it was
going to happen. So from about nineteen eighty six we
began thinking, how are we going to get round this?
How are we going to get square mesh in? Because
we were totally convinced that square mesh was going to
be good for certainly for hardick and waiting stocks, how
we're going to do it, and the square mesh panel
on the top side of the cord end was mooted.
Now I'll tell you a little story here, and it's
a funny story in a way because I to this
day I still have a laugh with Ken Arkley. Do
you remember Ken Arkley from the Seafish Industry Authority? Now,
Ken Ken was yeah, yeah, SFI. Ken was a very
practical down to earth lad and I was having discussions
with him about, you know, what to do in terms
of oh well, he said, let's let's have a look
at a panel, and I said okay, and I invited
them up on one of the trips and we did
some work on the panel, different positions in the cord end,
and it was great. And the panel on the top
side of the cord end works so well because it
depends on the behavior of the huddeken whiting, which always
rise up as they're running down the extension, or at
least swimming backwards as it were, or swimming to keep
up with the net, but the nets overtaking them as
they exhausts, so gradually they're dropping down the extension. They
come into the cod end and immediately they're pushing upwards
as they had been pushing upwards against the diamond mesh
but couldn't get out, and they were upwards. So this
behavior was incredible. They were always going upwards, so the
panel on the top side was just ideal. Now, this
behavior of Hardig and Whiting rising up was first discovered
by John Mayne and Graham Sangster when they started working
on their separator troll. Well actually before they started working
on the separator troll, they were filming fish behavior in
the mouth of the troll and they discovered that Haddig
and whiting when they exhausted and they couldn't keep up
swimming with the net with the troll as it was
trundling over the seabed, they would always rise up. Unbelievable,
and John and Graham said, wow, this is incredible. They
rise up, the whiting rise up, not to such a
high level, but all the had all the flatfish were
staying low, as you would imagine flatfish would always do,
and cod were staying low as well. So they came
up with a brilliant idea. Let's try a horizontal separator
panel along the full length of the net from the
from the mouth of the net just above the foot
rope right back into the court ends and have a
cought end on top and a cought end down below.
And lo and behold, the top cought end caught all
the hurdigan waiting. The lower cot end caught all the
flatfish and the cord. So that's that's why, that's why
the panel worked in my mind, because I knew that
behavior from John and Graham, and I knew they were
going to push out on the top side. But but
but my real problem was I wanted juvenile cod to
escape as well. Cod do not rise up. They always
they always tend to go down. And I knew from
the filming of my square mesh cought end, the full
cod end with the square mesh on the full circumference,
I had film of juvenile cod escaping from the lower part.
Now you can understand, Jim, that's why, that's why I
wanted to use the full square mesh cod end square
mesh on the circumference, because it would deal with the cod,
the juvenile cod, and it would going down, and it
would deal with the haddache juvenile haddigan waiting going up. Okay,
So the next problem, the next problem that the industry
quite rightly raised was what about the flatfish? If you're
using a full square mesh codent, are they going to escape? Well,
the simple answer was that tiny flatfish do escape from
square mesh eighteen ninety mili, but the regulation minimum size
and below doesn't necessarily do so. So to solve that problem,
we put a short length of diamond mesh on the
back end of the full square mesh cod ent and
that solved the problem. So cod juvenile cord were going
out down below in the square mesh, hurrigon whiting were
going out the top. The flat undersized flatfish were going
out with the diamond mesh at the back end. And
it couldn't have been better, But would would the legislators
except that no. Now, part of the reason was, of course,
that the industry were concerned about the full square mesh
cord end on the round. They wondered about the strength.
So I did a lot of its strength experiments, and
I use different type of netting. I used not Japanese
knutless netting and so forth, and we felt that we
had resolved all their questions about the strength, but it
didn't really gather traction. However, However, the squamish idea did
gather traction with the industry and certainly the squaremish panel
was acceptable to them. Uh. And then the whole sort
of political process of by the industry to to actually
get it introduced was was undertaken. And I met I
met some great guys you know who represented the industry.
I don't know if you remember Willy Hay very well,
Willie Willy willy Hay was he was extremely interested in
the squamish and we had a meeting well, in fact,
willy Hay invited Ken Arkley and myself down to Edinburgh
along with other representatives from Willy Hay was the president
of the s FF at the time and and uh
and and Tom Hay was at that time president or
chairman of of the s w f p A. He
later moved on and created f A L the Fisherman's Association. Yeah,
but but Tom Tom was there representing the s w
f p A, and he was he was in favor
of it because because their skippers had fed through the associations,
their their interest and and in many cases their delight
in the idea of the square mesh panel and reducing
the the juvenile Hurricane Whiting and and Willie Hay, I
mean Willie I had. I had seen Willie at some
meetings that had occurred in the lab and and and
and I thought, oh, dere being invited down to Edinburgh
by Willie Hay is probably going to tell me off
about the square mesh because I've seen him up, I'd
seen him operate at some other meetings, and by haven't
seen he wouldn't hold back with the scientists, you know,
he would give them hell. But you know what he
could he couldn't have been nicer. So we were in
a hood. I can't even remember which hotel. It was,
the meeting room in the hotel, and it was it
was laid out with the tables, and he met he
met Ken and I at the door of the hotel.
And I'll never forget He's come in. Lads. She says,
you must be starving. I've set up I've set you
up for a plate of fish and chips. So we
sat we sat down with all these industry leaders around us,
you know, including the likes of John Thompson, including you
know John Smith. He was he was in the s
w f P A one one of the office bearers
et cetera, and some names I can't even remember now,
but there were a lot of them, and they were
just questioning Ken and I about the whole business, and
we just we just laid it out as I'm laying
it out to you, about the squaremish, the full squaremish
caught end, they caught in with the diamond piece on
the end, the squamish panels, uh and so on, and
they were very much in favor of it. And I believe,
although there's a lot going on in the background with
many other people, including John Ashworth who was pushing for
it in Math, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in
in in England, that I believe that that was a
turning point that meeting where they they accepted that certainly
to help the industry and to minimize the destruction of
the juvenile fish, that the squaremish panel was worth seeing
or putting into legislation, and they then went to the
legislators and persuaded them to introduce it. And of course
the first introduction was in nineteen ninety one, as I said,
and believe it or not, Jim, of course you'll be
well aware square mesh has been in legislation continuously since
nineteen ninety one in the UK fishery at various sizes
and configurations, etc. It's been in European legislation since the
early nineteen nineties because they took it on board after
we introduced it in the UK, and it's been in Iceland,
it's been in Canada, it's been in America, it's been
in Norway, it's been in a wide range of countries
in the Northern Hemisphere, including in the Southern Hemisphere. Australia's
big and square mesh as well. So it it really,
it really did start something. But Jim, but now here's me.
I'm a young scientist and I come up with this
square mesh idea. Let's open the mass shop. And I
come up with this idea and I think, oh, this
is fabulous. I'm the first one. I'm the inventor, and
I thought, oh wow, this is something big, and I
was I was very proud of myself having invented it. Anyway,
after the first trial that I had with it, I thought,
do you know what I need to get into this
selectivity of cought ins more than I had done up
till that time, Because up till that time in the
Marine Lab Gym. I was looking at fishing gear design.
That's what I was employed for, to improve fishing gear design,
and that's all I've been doing. I hadn't developed into selectivity,
so I needed to get a background on what had
been done in selectivity. And along to the librarian in
the lab, John Byrne. And in those days, of course,
we didn't have the Internet. He couldn't email, he couldn't
He had to phone around all of the libraries in
the UK, in Europe and across the world to ask them.
My question to him, which was has square mesh ever
been used before? I was hoping it hadn't because I
wanted to be the inventor. But it had. It had
because John came back with And this is where the
history just fascinates me about the whole thing. Apparently a fellow,
a Dutchman by the name of Guelder, first child square
mesh panel. It was a panel in a in a
in a four panel caught end which was held open
by a frame. He tried square mesh in nineteen twenty eight.
Would you imagine nineteen twenty eight. It was incredible. And
John went even further back a fishery scientist in England,
an Englishman in eighteen ninety five, had you used square
mesh as well? So that was me blown out of
the water. I hadn't invented it after all, But Jim
I wasn't disappointed because the more that I got into
the whole selectivity issue and looked at the history of it, well,
there was Holt in eighteen ninety five, Guilder in nineteen
twenty eight. In the early nineteen hundreds there was a
rash of scientists Danish, Dutch and so forth who were
concerned about the destruction of juvenile fish, and they started
playing around with different designs of troll which they called
savings trolls. They were saving the juvenile fish, saving the babyfish.
But none of them, none of them took off in
the legislation, and it needs to go into legislation because fishermen.
Although in recent times I understand there have been some
fishermen who've wanted to trial their own designs and have
been refused by by the ministries to use them legally,
when in fact they've been shown to be much better
than what we've got at the moment. However, that's another story.
But none of the early devices were ever introduced into
legislation because at that time there was no legislation. There
was no minimum size mesh size. That didn't occur until
nineteen thirty three in the UK fishery when a mesh
size of roughly roughly seventy seventy five millimeters was introduced
to the troll fishery for the first time. Solation built
around the world into legislation from the nineteen thirties up
to the nineteen eighties where I was trying to introduce
the square mesh. So the history of the whole thing
was fascinating, and the history also included the then director
of the Marine Lab, Basil Parish. Now you might remember
Basil Parish. He was a great director of the Marine
Lab and he was very much in favor of the
square mesh. And when I came back from my first
trial on the Gold Seeker with the video film and
the data showing the juveniles escaping, he saw the film
and it was in September, and he said, what do
you want to do with this, Jack? And I said, well,
obviously we've got to do some experiments on it. I said,
well absolutely, he said, but what do you want to
do immediately, because he was so keen to get something
done immediately in terms of more fish data to prove
whether it was better or not. And I said, well,
I can't get any any funding because the annual funding
had been allocated. And he said, don't worry about that.
He said, how much do you need to charter a
fishing vessel and go off and do some experiments. So
within a month and made me returning from that trip,
Basil Parish had found funding and I had chartered a vessel,
the Harvest Reaper, out of the Fraserburg with James May
the skipper, and James was brilliant, absolutely brilliant, and we
got some very good data which showed to Basil that
the square was certainly performing better than the the Diamond
mesh in certain circumstances. And from there it blossomed. From
there I couldn't. I was never refused any funding that
I requested for, you know, chartering boats, going away with
the fishermen, et cetera, which was absolutely phenomenal. Now, one
interesting thing, Jim Listen, that trip with James May was staggering,
not only because of what they saw, they were staggered
by what they saw both from the video film and
from the data that I produced. But I was staggered
because James said to me one day, and it was
about the second day of the trials, he says, you
know something, Jack, I'm comparing the diamond mesh fish with
the square mesh caught fish, and I'm seeing a better
quality in the square mesh fish. And we looked at
it closely and it was true. Visually we could see
that there was a better quality. Now why was that, well,
of course James explained it. He said, because there's debris
escaping out of the square mesh, you know, the kind
of the sort of debris that you pick off the
seabedstones and shells and bit pieces, which when it grinds
around at the end of the cought end with the
fish accumulated, it's rubbing against the fish. They're losing scales.
They're not as good quality as the square mesh. And
do you know what James did, He said to me,
He said, do you know what, it's well worth keeping
those two groups of fish separate on the market, because
we landed on the market at the end of the
week and lo and behold the square Now nobody knew no,
but he knew and nobody had been forewarned that the
two fish had been separated. Lo and behold, the square
mesh fish was picking up about two to three pounds
of box more than the diamond mesh caught fish. Now
we asked to buy, I asked the buyers. I asked
the buyers afterwards, why did you buy that fish? And
he said, well, look, he said, the quality is better
on them. I can see that. He said, I'd still
buy the other fish. And then we told them that
the difference was diamond and square. So that was an
amazing finding.
Speaker 1: That that's one way to get a fisherman's heart.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, I'll tell you. I'll tell you the other
way to get this heart. My biggest selling point, apart
from the fact that it shaved juvenile fish with the
full square mesh caught end, was that there was less
sorting on deck because you didn't have the debris and
you didn't have.
Speaker 1: That would be an improvement on quality.
Speaker 2: As well, and that's an improvement on quality. But they
had less work on deck. So every hall with the
Harvard Streeber boys, they kept saying they were cheering by
the end of the trips when they saw the squaremish
caught in coming up. Oh, we don't have much sorting.
But they were still getting they were still getting the
equivalent marketable marketable adult fish as they had got with
the diamond mesh. So there were lots of selling points
early on. And as time went on, of course, and
more and more skippers and crew got to learn about
the square mesh, then they began to realize that there
were huge advantages.
Speaker 1: But when you say that, Jock, is it not sad
when you go back, so the vibes you were getting
when they might sheet of.
Speaker 2: Fat, it's very sad and.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: And you know, to pick up on your point about
your Icelandic Johann the Icelandic scientists, Christensen and him saying,
you know that they wanted research vessels because they were
nice and clean and cozy and everything was nice, and
they didn't want to go away in commercial boats because
it was smelly and dirty. I had exactly the same
experience with a senior scientist in the marine lab in
the early days of the square meshed when I mooted
that I start charting now. To put it to you, Jim,
the charting hadn't taken place to any great extent in
the marine lab, and they were kind of against it.
They wanted the research vessels to be used for the experiments.
But I I persuaded them that I was going to
get greater quantities of fish. I could work twenty four
to seven on the commercial boats. And one of the
senior scientists said to me one day, he said, he said,
I don't understand why you want to go in commercial
boats chat because they're dirty, smelly fishermen now, And I
said to it, I actually chastised him for that. I said,
you mustn't speak that way. We're in a sense representing
we're working for the industry, and that should be at
the forefront of every scientist's thinking, that you're there for
the industry. Whatever aspect of work you're doing, whether it's
stock assessment, environmental issues, whether it's selectivity work, you should
always be mindful that you're working for the industry. And
he was taken aback by that. He was taken aback.
He never ever said anything against the charters after that.
Speaker 1: He didn't see himself as working for the industry.
Speaker 2: Well, whether it was that Jim or not, I don't know,
but I was I was. I was really horrified by it,
because well, listen, it was you know. And I think
to the other extent is that I think a lot
of scientists in those days, I don't know what it's
like these days. I've been away from it for a
long long time, Jim, But those days, a lot of
the scientists thought that the industry were perhaps, you know,
not very intelligent. And nothing could be further from the truth.
The most intelligent people I have ever met on Earth
are some of the fishermen that I went away with. Well,
in fact, all of the fishermen, I would say, I mean,
look at Andrew Bremner on the boy Andrew and his father,
Norri I chartered. I chartered them a few times and
couldn't have been better. And Norrie putting across understanding immediately
the the you know, the whole concept of guaremation and
the need for it and pushing for it. And there
was there was Andrew and and and John Gary A
Cup and Shetland. I mean, what a clever, clever man.
And Sunbeam exactly yeah, and and and of course we
go back to Tom Harkas. I mean, my word, look
at the man, how he developed I was on both
his boats, by the way, the Orkney Reaver, which was
a fantastic seaboat, but the Kila, I love the Kila.
I've never been on a fishing boat quite like it
in seakeeping qualities and oh man alive. It was just
a superb, superb vessel.
Speaker 1: I love your passion and I think it's absolutely brilliant
the way you're giving recognition the guys commercial fishing boats.
Oh yeah, skippers that you worked, oh yeah for them,
and they worked for the Marine Lab.
Speaker 2: Well yeah they were they were working for the lab,
and and and they they enjoyed every minute of it.
I enjoyed every minute of it. But I mean, you know, Jim,
I always said at the time, and I and I
still say it, and I'll say it to anyone who
wants to listen to me until they're bored silly, because
you know what I'm like when I get stuck on
square mesh.
Speaker 1: But I would say with that, you'll talk, and you'll
talk until they're bold board silly, you said, but you
won't stop then.
Speaker 2: But but the thing was that the thing was Jim,
that to me, all of the skippers, including a lot
of people, are sure, including one or two in the
Marine lab as well are the unsung heroes of the
square Mesh story. Because the square mesh story was so
far away from anything that the industry had had ever
experienced that it must have been so difficult for them
to accept in a lot of a lot of cases.
And I mean, I'm spinning your story here of what
I saw in the industry, which was their acceptance was brilliant.
Speaker 1: What I could say to you, obviously, when you're talking
you get back to the eighties. I was much younger.
I was involved to degree, not the same as the
fisherman because I wasn't actively on the boat hands on
that I was talking to you when you would commend
when the boat would we be come in into land
and be talking to the fisherman. And I can remember
I just thought it was so exciting what it was
going to do for the future. So I know exactly
what you're all what you're saying there, Jack, I know exactly.
I can remember it clearly now.
Speaker 2: Jim, I don't want to embarrass You've given me. You've
given me the ideal opportunity to say that you you
are one of the unsung heroes. All those discussions that
we had, I didn't know who I was talking to
when when we were landing with the boats, except that
you know, you were buying from from the boats, the
fish from the boats. And of course you know me,
I'll talk to anyone in the on the pier, anyone
that comes up to me. In fact, I'll even grab
people and start talking to them when they don't want
to talk. And you, you, you listened, and I could
see the excitement in your eyes. But Jim, I saw
that excitement in so many other people's eyes. And you
went on and you chatted about that to every fisherman
that you encounter. I know for a fact, because fishermen
would feed back to me, always speaking to Jim Kwi
and he was telling me about the skirmish, tell me
something about it, and Jim was Shane, it's a great idea.
And Jim, you were all over the place. You were.
You were definitely one of the unsung heroes that that
that pushed it into into legislation eventually. But no, I
mean a lot of people, a lot of people were involved. Uh.
Speaker 1: And but as well as that, Jack, I appreciate it,
and I thank you for that really kind words. I
didn't see myself as that, but good back a wee
bit one of the other points you made earlier, and
I really do respect the way that you speak so
fondly and highly of the fisherman you had connections with
on my goodness worth plenty that I'll go back. I
remember we were still in the EU midterm review, That's
what it was, a midterm review the common Fisheries policy
in Shetland. I went up for it. I was we
were Tom and myself for coming back. We were in
Sambra airport waiting for her plane and who was sitting
on the airport waiting for their plane? And honestly that
live with me to the rest of my days. The
foresight and the knowledge and intelligence. Who was at three
guys everyone you mentioned, So I know and appreciate what
you're saying and who you're talking about, Willly Hay, Tom
Hay and Johnny Thompson.
Speaker 2: Johnny Thompson. Yes, yes, three unsung heroes.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely totally. And what I just come away from
we were just buzzing so fool What foresaid? What foresaid?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, absolutely, I'm big characters, Oh, huge characters, and
you know every one of them should have been knighted.
I firmly believe that that what they did for the industry,
and I sincerely wish and hope that the industry knew
it at the time, and I'm quite sure that a
lot of the industry did knew just what they sacrificed
for the industry and pushed for the industry. They were
all great, great men. And John Thompson, I'm glad you
mentioned him because the Saint Kilda, the Saint Kilda, Oh
what a beautiful boat.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't boat. And I remember one time they commend to
land in lochand that I was. I was buying a
lot of fish at the time. At that time that
would be before that, that would be well before the eighties.
That would be either late sixties or into the seventies.
And I was buying fish on and John came in
to land. He had his fish on the market. Now
there was a customer in Edinburgh, give me an order.
He wanted fish, told me about the quality, the size,
and I thought, well, I can't go wrong, I don't.
I think it was before the St Kilda as well.
I think it would be the Horizon. So I bought
the fish the customer wanted from. It was Johnny's Thompson's
fish because I knew the quality, knew the exactly what
he wanted. So customer got the fish. He was happy.
I was happy. And that was on the Thursday.
Speaker 2: And you know that.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you remember at that time that guy's landed.
There were fished out. They would land on the Thursday night,
go home, and then start again on the Sunday night.
And I was back up on the Tuesday and Johnny
was in again to land and he came up. He
came up to me and he says, how did you
get on with my fish last week? And I says,
I got on fine with it, Johnny. I had an
order from a customer. He wanted them, so I got
them at he's happy with them. So I don't know,
you're what you're getting at? I says, all good, you know,
and he's lossy accent. Oh, he says, I'm fine. Pleased
to hear that, Jem. He says, I was a wee
bit worried you paid too much for them.
Speaker 2: It's amazing. When when did you ever hear but when
you ever hear a fishermen? Well that was that was
That was the man, that was.
Speaker 1: The because because on the market. George McKay it was
you could say, mister Lochan where he owned the Lochander
fish selling company, and there was buyers coming up from Aberdeen.
Was was still operating a support buyers coming up from
Bucky Aberdeen all over. And of course here's me, young lad,
bidding on the fish. Of course what do they do,
push me up, making me, force me to pay more
pay And Johnny, when you think of it now, Jack,
Johnny had he at the foresight that he could see
it's new, young I wasn't buying a lot of that
size of headaches at the time, and here was him saying, well,
this could be the future.
Speaker 2: And he was.
Speaker 1: Rather than think it's more money for me, he thought, well,
I hope it doesn't damage in a way that he's
not he doesn't come in buying in the future.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was very thoughtful that way.
Speaker 1: John That's that's the measure of the mind he was.
Speaker 2: He was also the most patient skipper I think I've
ever come across I did. I did a couple of
trips with him. One trip I was filming the Shane
Net now is Shane Net to film with the RCTV
them remote control television vehicle is very, very difficult, and
it took us three weeks to get some good film
of juvenile fish escaping from the cot end. And I'll
forever be in John Thompson's dead for the patients that
he displayed during that three weeks until we got the film.
When we got the film, he celebrated it far and wide.
He plastered that video anywhere and everywhere he could send
it because he was so enthused by the square mesh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't believe that.
Speaker 2: Great. Great, I'll tell you. I'm sorry take up your
time here, but listen another funny story, Johnny. When we
were on that trip. You know how the rescue helicopters
very often come over a fishing boat and ask permission
to do some practice landings aboard. And that happened to us,
you know, regularly. Anyway, the Wessex I think it was
a Wessex helicopter at the time, I'm sure it was.
It came over us and the radio comes on, skipper,
can we could we do a practice and John John
turns to me and he says, you okay for this, Jack,
you know it's your charter. I said absolutely, I said no,
I'm in full encouragement of, you know, practicing for the
rescue services. Anyway, the winchman comes down onto the deck,
he releases and I get chatting to him. Well what
was I chatting to him about? Square Mesh? Of course,
Jim and telling him, telling him, telling him what we
are doing. And I could see him glaze over gradually,
you know, and he started he started signaling, is his
pilot to come in and lift him off? And I
said to him, I said, just before he lifted off,
I said, look, you wouldn't mind taking the camera. I
had a video camera on board and I was videoing
the whole thing, you know, And that's what I did.
I made videos of each trip and distributed it around. Anyway,
I said to him, wouldn't mind taking the camera up
and filming us? Oh? He's just no bother at all.
He says, would you like to come up yourself and
do the filming yourself? I said, no, I better not
leave the vessel. It might not go down too well
in Edinburgh with the civil servants. If if Jack Robertson
was known to have flown off in a Wessex helicopter. Anyway,
the wenchman takes the camera and he does a brilliant
movie and he comes back down hands it over And
what a wonderful, wonderful video we made of that trip,
you know, including the underwater video of the Square Mesh.
And Johnny Thompson of course was delighted to get aerial
film of the shint Kilda as well, so he's very
proud to get that video at the end of the
day from us.
Speaker 1: And fantastic Jack. If I could, maybe I wouldn't say
steal your thunder a bit, but maybe give you one
that you weren't aware of. Oh what's that? You know,
when you're going on about your history lessons, you can
back the nineteen early nineteen nineteen twenty something. Yeah, yeah,
and then you go back to the eatings.
Speaker 2: You said eighteen ninety three. I think it was eighteen
eighteen ninety five.
Speaker 1: I want to steal your thunder, but I'm going to
be looking at a paper when we finish our conversation. Yeah,
I think I'm going to send you on from the
thirteen hundreds. Oh and it was it was talked in
parliament and sent to the King for approval, the then
king for approval.
Speaker 2: Oh, Jim, this is great history.
Speaker 1: Go on, go on, tell me, tell me not just
about immature fishing fish escaping.
Speaker 2: Amateur fish escaping. Ah, right, even in those days, even
in those days, it's always been the concern. I'm delighted.
I want to see that paper for sure. Oh, Jim,
that's that's wonderful. Well, do you know, Jim. And going
from that thirteenth century issue, going from then to the future,
there's the young's coming through in the industry. Now. Their
future depends on letting juvenile fish escape from the from
the gear. They've got to look after their their future,
and they've got to embrace selectivity in the in the nets.
Speaker 1: To take that one. If I could just maybe ask
the question what was happening in fisheries that made selectivity important?
Speaker 2: Oh, without a doubt, it was the destruction of the
juvenile fish.
Speaker 1: Gim.
Speaker 2: I mean, skippers were showing me videos, uh and move
movie films, you know, the old sinny h stuff of
halls that they would have, and they would dump the
juvenile fish and that fish would lie on the surface dead. Okay,
the goals were getting them. It was entering the ecosystem,
but it wasn't doing any good for the fishing industry,
and those fishermen were coming to me and telling me
that long before, long before I started the selectivity work
in the mid nineteen seventies, when I was on the
research vessels, which, as I told you earlier, were crewed
by ex fishermen, inevitably I would ask about the history
of fishing, of their experiences, of the boats that they had,
where they fished, and all the rest of it. And
every one of them started to tell me about the destruction,
and it was foremost in their mind, Gym foremost in
their mind, and they would take me to their houses
and show me the siny eight and I was flabbergasted
because I had no real notion of that up to
that point. But then, as I said to you earlier,
I started diving with John and Graham, and I saw
the capture of the juvenile fish in the nets. So
I was linking those videos from the fishermen to what
I was saying, and that's what moved me into this
whole area of selectivity, because I thought we have to
we must do something to save the juvenile fish, and
that was my driving force. In fact, I became very blinkered. Jim.
It has to be said about selectivity in general now
and square mesh in particular, as you know. But it
wasn't just the square mesh I discovered. And this I
can claim fame for without a shadow of a doubt,
that the selectivity of long extension pieces in troll mates
is very poor and if you shorten the extension piece up,
you're beginning to open the meshes up a little bit.
It's what they do with the design of the troll
et cetera, et cetera. And the escape of juveniles was
a bit better. Now, that was a non starter. I
could never introduce that to the fishery because the fishermen
need the long extension to get from the nets are
taken over the stern of the boat and the cod
end is taken up for it always on the starboard
side to the fishhold, and they had to have that
long extension to get round. So although that discovery was
extremely interesting in terms of selectivity and improving selectivity, the
one that did work and is in legislation now is
the reduced meshes on the circumference of the cordent. And
that was an experiment that I set up in the
again in the early night in eighties in tandem with
all the squirmish stuff that I was doing. So what
the fishermen were doing was they were using a large
number of meshes on the round on the circumforts of
the content, and that would close the meshes up tight.
And I asked fishermen why they were doing that, and
they said, well, it's catching me more fish. I said, okay,
but it's is it catching you more marketable fish? Well,
not really marketable, but it's catching more juveniles. And I said,
but why would you want to catch the juveniles because
they said, it proves to us that the net the
troll is fishing correctly. Now think on that a moment, Jim,
Is that not astonishing? They had the conception, that I
suppose in their minds rightly, that because they were catching
the juveniles as well as the adults, then the net
was on the botto, the foot rope was tight on
the bottom, it was capturing what it needed to capture.
Nothing was getting out and away from the front of
the troll that they were pulling everything in and it
was getting down into the content. And I said, well,
but then you know these are under the minimum landing
size juvenile fish. You're dumping them so it's a complete
and utter way, And they said yes. And I spoke
to a lot of skippers who used that explanation, and
that was in the nineteen seventies. I never ever heard
a skippers or any fishermen say that in the nineteen
eighties or early nineteen nineties, because I believe that it
was the film videos that John Mayne and Graham Sangster
and I were producing on the various experiments that we
were doing, which was showing the fishermen that they did
need to capture the juvenile fish to show them that
the net was fishing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there was. Because I was going to ask you,
why were a juvenile such a concern because we're traditional
nets failing.
Speaker 2: Well, now, it was of the time, gym. They weren't
failing because the mesh, the minimum mesh size was what
it was, which was seventy and eighty seventy in the
pron trolls and eighty in the whitefish trolls. It was
of the time. And I suppose esoterically you can say,
yes they were failing, failing the juvenile fish and retaining them, yes,
but they weren't failing the fishermen in a sense because
they had no conception until they saw the video film
of the nets. They had no conception of really what
was going on down there.
Speaker 1: Although yeah, well I could I say maybe stly slightly.
Did personman already understand before science stepped you say.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. The industry understood
absolutely before before before the industry And listen, if I
can just go back, because I think something I said
a few moments ago was was was not quite right.
I said something like, you know, the fisherman had no
conception of what was going on on the seabeds. Their
net was was being towed over the ground. That's not true. Actually,
the fisherman knew an awful lot of what was going
on by telltale signs, damage to natch, wearing tear and
chain on on the wing ends, wearing tear on the
foot rope and so on, meshed fish through certain sections
of the of the troll. You know what, you know
what I'm talking about. It was telltale signs that were
demonstrating to fishermen that something wasn't quite right, one of
which was the amount of juvenile fish that were capturing
and also the meshed juvenile fish that were meshed in
the extension pieces in particular, So that was the fish
that got pinched by the netting as they were trying
to escape but couldn't, and that came to the surface,
and the fishermen saw that. So the industry were, without doubt,
way ahead of the scientists in understanding. I suppose that
the damage that was being done by the capture of
juvenile fish in particular, and the damage that that was
subsequently doing to the stalk sizes I see.
Speaker 1: I know it made seem as if it's a repetition,
and you've already spoken about, but it's not. With the
square mesh. Where do you did the square mesh? Forget
we're talking now thirteen hundred, eighteen hundred and nineteen hundred,
forget all that history, but with yourself, where did the
square mesh idea come from?
Speaker 2: It? It came, do you mean? For me? For me,
without any doubt, it just came with the amount of
thinking that I was doing during my earlier years in
the lab about the design of trolls. So my remit
was to improve troll design, to make it more economical,
to make it more efficient for the fishing fishermen. And
it was just the thinking that I was doing about
the opening of meshes, or the lack of opening in
a lot of cases, and the retention of juvenile fish,
and thinking how can I open up the mesh, and
just fiddling about with little bits of netting at home,
in the marine lab, in my office, all over the
bloody place. I mean, people in the family were sick
of me fiddling about with bitsinet because I was determined
how do I do this? And just turning diamond mesh
on the square How simple could that be? And as
I mentioned earlier, looking at hexagonal mesh as well, but
that was a non starter because of the complication of
repairing it. But it started with me. Now it's interesting
because and again this is working against my desire to
have discovered square metch, which I didn't. But the first
trip that I had in a gold Seeker, James Calder,
a Bucky fisherman ex fisherman who was skipper of the
gold Seeker and the crew watched the video. As I
was flying the RCTV, I would control it to fly
around the cod end and the first time that they
saw the squaremish cought end, they were flabbergasted and James
immediately almost immediately said to me. He said, Jack, that's
something that must go into legislation to let more juvenile
fish escape. And we got talking about it afterwards, and
there was a lot of discussion, and James described to
me that square mesh had been used before, and I thought, oh, no,
I'm blown out of the water. Haven't discovered squaremish. And
what it was was he himself had actually used squaremish
behind the foot rope of the troll where they were
fishing over shell ground or stony ground. The shells and
the stone would drop through the very large square meshes
that they would use, and it would just be one
or two or three rows, and then the diamond mesh
would be attached to the back end of that, so
the stones and the shells would come over the foot rope,
fall through the square mesh and not be caught in
the net obviously, because of course they knew that if
the stones and shellfish got back to the court entend,
it would destroy their catch. It would completely destroy the
quality of the fish and the nephrops, the prawns that
they were fishing. So there you go. He told me that,
you know, square mesh had been used in another application
which was brilliant, and it adds to the whole history
of the Squaremish story.
Speaker 1: And obviously lots of what you're saying, it all makes
practical sense. Why did it make scientific sense?
Speaker 2: Well, it made shine of sense because the now I
need to get a little bit technical here and try
and describe graphs. Each each time we towed the content,
we would capture the juvenile fish that came out of
the content, so we knew what had escaped and what
had been retained in the content, and we could build
a graph which displayed fish length, you know, starting at zero, five, ten, fifteen,
twenty centimeters, thirty centimeters and so on on the bottom
of the graph, and then on the on the vertical
axis of the graph, you would have the proportion retained.
So that was simply comparing what it has had escaped
at each size of fish against what it'd been retained
in the content. So you built a picture of retain
against escapes. And that graph usually pretty much always followed
an esh shaped curve, what's called an ogive in the trades.
So it was an ish shaped curve, so that when
you got up to say forty centimeters, it would be
at one hundred percent retention of forty centimeter fish, whereas
if you went down to the juvenile fish size, let's
say fifteen centimeters, you would be further down the ogive
curve to a position that would suggest at fifteen centimeters
you had retained twenty percent of the juveniles and eighty
percent of them had escaped. Now, for a diamond mesh,
cod end of the sizes that I was experimenting with,
the ogive was very flat, usually very flat, so that
even at the juvenile fish sizes of you know, ten, eleven, twelve, thirty, forty, fifteen, sixteen,
seventeen centimeters, the retained percentage could be as high as
thirty forty fifty percent. Still, now here's the croux. When
we used the square mesh. Firstly, the ogive was always steeper.
In other words, the cutoff between retaining juveniles and retaining
marketable species gave a much steeper ogive, so that you
found when you went down to fifteen centimeter size of
Haddacker whiting, let's say, there was zero retention of that
size of fish, meaning all the juveniles of that side
size had escaped from the cotted. Now, because because the
ogive was much steeper, and because there was more of
a discernible cutoff between retained juveniles or shall I say,
escaped juveniles, as opposed to retained marketable fish, you were
ending up with more marketable fish at the equivalent size
of square mesh compared to diamond mesh. So for an
eighty milimeter square mesh, which was equivalent roughly to a
ninety milimeter diamond mesh, sometimes a bit more actually, but
the od jive, the ogive for the diamond mesh would
be very shallow, and the ogive for the square mesh
would be quite steep, So the cutoff could be manipulated
in a way with the mesh size to give you
a cutoff point for the minimum size of fish that
was required by law to be retained. And at that
time for haddock it was, as I recall, it was
twenty seven centimeters. So for the eighty millimeter square I
was getting pretty near most of the juvenile escaping out
of the square mesh. But because it was a steeper ogive,
I was getting more more marketable fish. And that was
the incredible thing about it.
Speaker 1: The other incredible thing that I would ask you, Jacket,
why was it controversial? This made common sense.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, yeah, I mean, well okay, I of course
I wouldn't call it controversial because I don't think anything
that is designed to improve conservation controversial. In my mind,
it's not controversial, but it was controversial. Yeah, But to
many people it was controversial. And I used to say
to them, why is it controversial? Do you not want
to improve the escape of juvenile fish? They would answer yes,
of course we do. And I said, well, you know
why is it controversial?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: Well, it's because it's so different. And I say, well,
if the fishing industry accept it, then it's not controversial.
Have you spoken to any fishermen that are against it
completely and utterly? No, I haven't. Well I hadn't either,
because most of the fishermen that I spoke to who
I showed the movie to, the underwater video showed the
data to convinced all the skippers that I went away
in the commercial charters with, every single one of them,
were convinced totally that it worked and that it showed
the attributes that I'm discussing in terms of retaining more
marketable at certain sizes, letting much more juvenile, many more
juveniles escape, et cetera, et cetera. So I could to
this day, I cannot understand why people thought it to
be controversial. In fact, many many of those people thought
it's so controversial that they tried to stop it going
into legislation. Now I'm talking about, you know, the odd
scientist and the odd civil servant. Now, the fishing industry
came into play, and I've described meetings I had with
Willie Hay and all the rest of it. When they
went back to the civil servants, they said, well, you know,
we want the square mesh. And the civil servants said, yes,
but you know, aren't their problems of strength and so
on and so forth. Yes, but that's all been solved
by the Marine Lab. The Marine lap has done strength tests.
They've devised means of necessarily strengthening up the salvages of
the square mesh, running ropes along the mesh to ensure
that it was strong enough to lift caught ins of
fish aboard, et cetera, et cetera. So that's all been solved.
So why why is it still controversial in your mind?
And gradually the fishing industry itself persuaded the legislators to
accept that the industry itself didn't find it controversial that
they were quite happy with it because they could see
they could see the benefit of its introduction in terms
of letting more juveniles escape, letting the babies, the baby's escape,
and it became the mantra.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and if I could ask you, Joe for a moment,
to take your scientist start off and just give us
our listeners are insane because obviously, as a scientists, you're
going on what we described earlier, dirty fishing, smelly fishing boats.
What was your experiences like going to see any of
the practical problems when you were there, if there were
gear failures, bad weather, you must have some memories that well.
Speaker 2: Well, absolutely, there are a lot of memories. I mean,
the predominant memory for me has always been just how good,
how nice the fishermen were, the skippers and their crews were,
and also how how nice the boats were. The boats
weren't smelly, dirty, The boats were some of the finest,
cleanest vessels I've ever been on. Because fishermen are proud
of their ships, they're proud of their vessels, they're proud
of what they do, and that showed through an abundance
to me in every single boat that I went on. However,
there were some funny incidences, and one of which I
to this day dispute completely and utterly. However, with tongue
in cheek, I have to add and Tom, I think
one of one of your other guests, Tom from what
you called catch Cam, his Tom Rossiter. He relates this
story because he was told it by James May. Jim May,
the skipper of Harvest Reaper. Well, Jim, as you know,
was the first boat that I went away on and
and we did a fantastic trip. That was a great trip,
and I went on many trips with Jim May. However,
on one of the trips I had a lot of
changing of cod ends and extension pieces, because not only
was I looking at the square mesh, but I was
looking at the idea of long and short extensions and
full cought ends and squaremish cought ends and so on.
And Jim and I, I mean I always got involved
in the practical side of changing the gear over whinning
if I could. And with Jim, he enjoyed working on
the deck with me. So while the crew were sorting
the catch, Jim and I would change the cod end
or the extension piece or whatever.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 2: So Jim and I are chatting away and having a
grand old time. It's a lovely day off Fraser Bragh
and the sun was shining, and we do our job
of attaching a new a different extension to the extension
of the troll that was about to be shot again
once the crew had sorted the fish out, so the
net is shot away, so the core end goes over
first Jim and then the extension and nothing behind it.
We hadn't attached the extension to the troll. We did
attach the we did. We had attacked we'd attached the
extension to another piece of extension that was lying on
the deck. So James May shouts from the wheelhouse. He said,
Jack Robertson, you haven attached it in the right place.
I said, no, no, it's your fault. Anyway, long story short,
we've always had a laugh over the years about it,
Jim and the and and Jim related that to Tom
Rossiter some years.
Speaker 1: Did you ever did you ever get it back? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Of course, yeah, we did, of course, because you know
it was it was poly ethylene, so it was floaty
and we just turned around and picked it up. But
there was James and I James and I the experiment,
you know, it was, it was. It was not helped
by not attaching it correctly. And I I can't I
can't tell you need a few pints in a pub
or you know, to really appreciate the funny side of
that story. I can't really tell it.
Speaker 1: That would be a cracker, that story.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, but you know that that that was great. But
there were there were lots of stories with with all
the guys, really, but the overriding.
Speaker 1: Have been a few suspectious of you.
Speaker 2: Well I suppose I suppose there were. But I'll tell
you what, Jim, I I had a neat way of
dealing with that. And the neat way, well, there's suspicionly
high falutin scientists. I wasn't a high faluting scientist at all.
I was just a practical man that was just interested
in helping the industry out, you know. And they were
all flabbergasted when I went down to the deck if
there was any damage to the net. I did it
in the early days, but not in the latter days
on the bigger boats like the Kila and so forth.
But when I was on the likes of the Harvest
Reaper and a few other boats, smaller boats in the
kind of sixty five foot class like the Idle Voice
from Fraserberg as well. I used to help out if
the crew were sorting the fish. For me, I would
help out with a bit of repair if there was
any damage to the net. Now I learned to repair nets.
Would you believe that the Fishermen's Traller School in Aberdeen
in nineteen seventy two and Alec Duffy was the ex
Aberdeen skipper who ran that school, and he ran fabulous
courses for young fishermen starting out in their careers. For
there are various courses, you know, a week or three
weeks or sometimes a month, et cetera. Net mending and
navigation and all that kind of stuff you know for
the apprentice fishermen. And when I joined the lab, the
first thing that I asked the then leader of the
fish capture group, John Foster, I said, look, I'd like
to I'd like to learn how to mend. He said
why would you want to do that, Jack, and said, well,
you know our businesses nets, we need to know them
inside out. So I went on a course to learn
how to mend and I used that on the fishing
boats in the early days. You know, I'd go down
the day and the guys would say, did look at me?
In amazement? Where are the earth did you learn how
to mean? I said, well, I went to fisherman's supprentice school.
Gee was And I think that opened their eyes. It really,
it really did, Jim, because I was just down there
with some doing it with them, and I think there
were obviously they were impressed, but they were also I
think they were just pleased. Well one of us, you're
one of us, Yeah exactly. Yeah, yeah you're not. You're
not above USh, You're you're you're down on the deck
getting dirty with us.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, that's brilliant. Well done you as well. There
must have been some There must have been in your
time as well. There must have been some real personalities
on board. We real characters.
Speaker 2: Oh, there were there were, And well there's some stories
I can't relate here, Jim, unfortunately.
Speaker 1: Some very unless you're back in the pub.
Speaker 2: Well yeah it would would. Yeah, we'd have to be
in the pub for those with with no recording devices.
But yes, I I I can't relate them. But yeah,
there were there were tremendous characters. Every one of them
were characters in their own way, and some of them
have gone on to great things. I mean, you know,
and with Tom Tom Harkas, his nephew was on board,
Ian Harkas that you know very well, and and Lee
Grot they went off and got bought their own boat.
They all skier. And that's that's the thing that I
observed a lot. And I was so delighted in a
way to see that that crewman skippers would bring crewman
on and encourage them to go off and get their
own boats, et cetera. And Ian and and Lee went
on and made great success of the all skier. Lee
eventually took his his deep sea captain's ticket, didn't he.
And I understand he's now up in Orkney. Yeah right, okay,
so all skippering up there. So yeah, and.
Speaker 1: He's got a really fantastic job.
Speaker 2: Oh but and think about Tom's sons as well, I
mean Peter. I understand that Peter's still fishing and still
doing great things.
Speaker 1: They've built the boat Jack. They've got a boat they
call it the West of Fiord, but if you go
the West Fiord, but if they built it was built
in Denmark. If you break that down really basically, and
I'm sure you'll remember that day as we Tom himself
west refiord an hour speak would be the Westry first.
Speaker 2: The Westry first, Yeah yeah, yeah, oh yeah. And names
of boats are so important to them and that that
family and to Tom.
Speaker 1: And listen, I'll tell you sorry, I'll just before all
I was going to say on that one, Jack is
when you when I think, I mean to Tom, Tom
as we all know him, I would put him in
top list as far as one of my closest friends,
go back a long long time with them. But and
this is what I often think back in the days
when you were involved in the Square mesh and that's yeah,
that was a Yes, he was a successful fisherman, but
he had vision and he had for the future. And
when you think of it, you ask a question. Yes,
both Paul Peter is on board. But their son, so
you could say Tom and Liz's grandsons they're on boarded
as well. So when they hear the other dreaded word,
he committed to the fishing like sustainability and looking at
the future. That's why they're looking the future. I want
it to be sustainable, Jack, and I give you ten
the No. Twenty out of ten because you recognize that
and what they're doing. But it's not just to make
more money. Their sons and grandsons are coming through.
Speaker 2: Now, that's why I did it. And you know, all
the fishing communities around Scotland, Bucky and Fezerberund, peter Head
and so forth have been decimated, losty Mouth, decimated. Orkney's
standing firm and they're standing firm because of the type
of skipper that Tom harkass is and his sons, and
I'm amazed and and Ian Harkis as well. You know,
good luck to them. Keep going, keep pushing, keep doing it.
But you've got to really unfold around selectivity of the
fishing gear. But but the legislator have got to stop
doing this continual increasing of square mesh size and the
fishing industry losing marketable fish as a consequence. The industry
have got to fight harder against the legislators to get
their point across that yes, they want conservation and they
want the juvenile fish to escape, but they must retain
all of the marketable fish that enter the troll on
a Halby Hall basis, because if they don't, they're going
to have to end up doing more halls, more time
at sea, more fuel consumption and so on. It's a
fisious circle, but it's got to happen. Jim, if I may,
can I just go back to the west of Jord.
You know the meaning of the name. And I was
delighted when I asked Tom Harkas the first time that
I was away on the Kila where the name came from.
He said that it was the Norwegian for a female
cod and I thought, that is a fantastic name for
a boat. Unbelievably good named for a boat. I very
nearly I got a yacht many years ago, which I
no longer have, but I very nearly called it Kila
because I was so impressed by that name. But I didn't.
I named it after the dog instead, Finn.
Speaker 1: But there you go.
Speaker 2: But oh, Jim, uh, you know, the industry have got
to fight hard because they're they're being inundated by closed
areas and so on and quatas and it just becomes
mind boggling. I had. I had a quick look the
other day at Scotland's future catching policy Selectivity Proposals Consultation
from the Government twenty twenty six, which actually closed in
just the consultation closed just recently, and I was I
was flabbergasted, but also delighted to see that there is
a proposal from the government that the full square mesh
cort end be introduced into certain fisheries. So that was
what I started off with, the full cot end with
square meshes all the way around the court end, which
is by far the best for release in juvenile had
it cought and waiting, isn't Isn't that a credible incredible
how things go around?
Speaker 1: It is? It is, And I'm not trying to make
it turn that negative. But when you say about just
say we were to say about how things are done now,
I'll reiterate conversation for fairness to the guy will not
mention his name, but I'm on scrubs their pier. A
good friend of mine, Skipper, is on the key with me,
just been landing his fish, and he had a letter
in his hand, and this letter was from the Department
mean directory with his basically the dos and don'ts, what
he had to do, regulations and all he had that
here to and he says to me, Jim, he says,
I'm reading this letter and it's clearly shows me that
this was done by somebody that has never been in
a fishing boat in their lives.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, it's it's it's the same now
as it was in my time. It was the lab.
And that's that's why words fail me, actually, that it
just carries on. I think one of the big problems
is always that the scientists are potentially not very good
at making their argument with the civil servants sitting behind
the desk. I might be wrong in that, and certainly
a lot of the scientists would take issue with that
with me, But I found with all my selectivity work,
you had to you really had to get a hold
of them and set them down and show them the video,
show them the data, talk it through, talk about the
practical side of it, because they really have no conception
at all, no conception. But it's worrying to hear that
it's the same as it always was. But I would
just reiterate to the fishing industry spend more time with
the legislators. I mean, they're spending time with the scientific
community and science and industry partnerships and all the rest
of it, and that's all to the good, but you
need to go further than that, you need to you
need to shit the desks in Edinburgh, sit in the
civil servants desks and talk to them a lot, a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But unfortunately it seems to be becoming the way
and all industries now and all walks of life. It
just seems that people sitting on desks and they're just
all the legislation and anybody and everybody.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1: Almost now summed up would use it? Did square mesh
help save fist stocks? What lesson still matters today?
Speaker 2: Well, definitely it saved the hurrican waiting because if you're Amber,
in the early nineties nineteen nineties, the hurrican whiting stocks
had been going down quite markedly and there was real
concern in the industry. And if you look at the
spawning stock biomass for the ten years following the introduction
of square mesh, the spawning stock biomasses of hardock in
particular and whiting as well started to rise very markedly.
It's not entirely as clear nowadays as it might have
been then, but definitely it helped hurrican whiting. It's all
about the hurrican whiting.
Speaker 1: Do you think the fishing industry receives enough recognition for
the conservation work it has contributed to over the years.
Speaker 2: Oh probably not. Actually, I think that there wasn't enough
recognition given to anyone gym, to the fishing industry, or
to scientists, although I think I was reading this. No,
it's a very difficult question that I mean, in a sense,
we don't want recognition. All we want is to save
the babyfish and to increase the stock sizes, and that
was my driving force all the time, and it was
with the skippers as well. But no, I think that
there was never an occasion at any meetings with the
senior scientists and the fishing industry where the senior scientists
would congratulate the industry for what they had done in
the introduction of the squirmish panel or even taking part
in the trials that they did. I mean, I recognized
the skippers and I gave them the thanks that they
deserved all the time. But no, they just didn't receive
the recognition, either in the press or or or or
anywhere else. There are many of those skippers who who
should have been recognized for going above and beyond in
the introduction of the square mesh that we were never
were never recognized. I'm not sure where you're coming from, Jim.
I mean, are you suggesting that they should have been
given civil recognition you know, a war? No, not that, no, no, no, no, no, no,
just just the fact that they had they had taken
part and done it all. I think I think all
the recognition. They're all recognized in all of the scientific
papers that I produced, and indeed that other people have produced.
But but you know, that doesn't go to a wide audience.
And in the Earth early days, sometimes the fishing news
would pick up on some of the trials that were done,
and you know, the story would be told of what
happened on the trial, and the skipper would be interviewed
and give some comments. I suppose in a sense that
was recognition of the fact that they were involved and
so on. But no, I don't think anyone got enough
recognition for what they did. It was it's it was
a huge, huge thing of huge historical significance, the introduction
of the square mesh and for that matter, the limiting
of the number of messures on the cod end round
as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and do you think what the dameser the losing
cooperation between science and the industry.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, Jim, do you know, I think I'm so
far removed from it nowadays that I can't really comment
on that to any great depth, other other than saying
that it appears to me that there is still cooperation
between the industry. Just reading I picked up in the
Fishing News just recently, I took a subscription out. I
haven't had one for many a long year, and I
got interested enough, and what I'm reading in the in
the Fishing News suggests that there is still cooperation. But
my fear is that as more of the scientific community
is reduced by the government, which it apparently seems to
be doing in the likes of the Marine Lab in Aberdeen.
As they're reducing, there'll be perhaps less opportunity to get
involved with and cooperate with the between the industry and scientists.
But I'm sorry, Jen, I find'gult be in answering that, really,
I feel enough.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you a quote it has given me in
a podcast and by a guy I'm sure I'm almost
positive you know very well you would have I'm sure
you'd even even work in the lab with him. And
what he reckoned was the biggest mistake made was putting
a value on quota and license. Yes, yes, And he said,
and his view was it was the end almost to
the stage where he was at. Probably, well certainly I
was at. We've all been at. Was young guys ambition
was to be a fisherman and then to be skipper
and eventually to have their own boat. And they said
putting a value monetary value on the quota and the
lycis that is now impossible. Unlets it's a fan or
family of an owner, a fishing boat owner, that is impossible.
Well you know that said that?
Speaker 2: Who is that?
Speaker 1: Dave McKay.
Speaker 2: Sorry Ian McKay, Oh, sorry, Dave mckaye, I'm miss misheard that,
Dave McKay. Dave McKay is absolutely correct. Dave comes from
a fishing family background as well. And and and Dave,
Dave would have been horrified as I was with with
the the putting a price on the quota. I always
remember speaking to a skipper that I hadn't seen for
quite a long time, how are you getting on and
how's the fishing going? And he said, he says, I
don't really know. Jack, He said, I'm not fishing. Oh,
I said, why why aren't you fishing? Have you retired
or come out of it or whatever. No, no, he said,
I'm a slipper. Skipper. Now you know what that means, Jim.
He's sitting in the house with his slippers on, and
he's rented out his quota to other fishermen. So he's
sitting at home, not fishing, not doing anything other than
you know, taking cruises around the world. And it's wrong.
It's wrong that somebody should hold quota in that manner
that can be sold at very high cost to fishermen
that are trying to get into the industry. It's wrong
and it needs to stop.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent.
Speaker 3: And to the point where I was talking to a
guy Irish and he was saying there he said, obviously
they are still it was Southern Ireland, not Northern Ireland,
and obviously they're still in the EU. And the way
he described it, they were, you know, it was to
do with the deathimation, the mark quote and how they've
been treated by it. But he says, it's not come
from Brussels, it's come from Dutch billionaires. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
that's who's got the powet.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I don't know any of the insine outs.
But was it not the case a few years ago
that there was a court case that was trying to
stop this quota selling. I don't know anyway, it needs,
it needs the government to to actually resolve it and
take the quarta back for the fishermen rather than these people.
It's it's shocking. It's absolutely shocking.
Speaker 1: It is it is. I Finally, when history looks back
at square based panel development, what do you hope people
understand about the work that was done in Aberdeen?
Speaker 2: Well, I just hope they see that for the period
there was a need for a change in the way
that we look at selectivity and a desperate need to
save the juvenile fish as there had been for one
hundred years before. Back to Holt in eighteen ninety five,
back to Gelder in nineteen twenty eight, and so on.
It just went. It was going on and on and on,
and something needed to change. And I hope people might
look back and say, well, wow, you know that was
a big change and it was a good change and
it helped. And let's hope that now the fishing industry
into the future grasp it. The whole notion of making
gears more selective, as long as they're practical, as long
as as long as they can be handled well on
the fishing boat, and use them to their benefit, use
them to the benefit of the fishing industry, because you know,
I go back to the old thing, that the point
that I made in the early nineteen eighties. It's a
food industry, it's fresh food, it's a food industry. We
can't keep destroying juvenile fish the way that we've been
doing over the years. We've got to let them grow
to spawn and produce bigger stocks to keep the industry going.
Jobs in the industry are very important as well. Jimmy Way,
you remember Scotland. I don't know how many boats were
around the ports in Scotland, but it's nothing like it
used to be.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, we'll just go ruin the buddy first, Jack, I
mean there's hardly a boat and Bucky, you got Lossy Mouth,
no boats and lots as a marina, Burghead, little little bit.
Then you come round Helmsville, the village I'm from, there's
no whitefish boats, lives, there no boats. There's one WUK
registered whitefish boat now Jack and that's the boy Andrew Woow.
When you think when you think my younger days, they
would have been thirty or forty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'd have.
Speaker 1: To see them all the way around. It's really sad.
Speaker 2: It's sad. But you know, I suppose you've got to
get somebody on your your podcast, the people with the
power who can change all that, you know, the administrators
or the government officials, or the or the MP's, and
get a plan to bring all that back. But well,
oh dear, we can end up crying here.
Speaker 1: Jim, what would you going back from that? What would
you like younger fishermen and scientists to understand.
Speaker 2: Just work for each other, and in particular the scientific community.
Get the mindset that you are working to for the industry,
to make it better, to improve fish stocks, to get
more fish in the sea by using more selective gears.
Forget about all the closed areas and the quotes and
so forth. Just get into selectivity in a big way
going forward. I would say that to young fishermen in particular,
because youngsters these days can visualize better gear design and
so forth, and just just do however difficult it seems,
there's always a way with selectivity and fishing gear to
make it manageable. And handleable on the vessel, and that's
what you need, and that's what the scientists need to
understand to give you. And I don't know, Jim, I
get very uptight about the need for much more cooperation
between the two. We had fantastic cooperation in the nineteen
eighties up to the introduction of the Squirmish panel, and
that was a very good time.
Speaker 1: What it's like.
Speaker 2: Bear in mind, Jim, that I left the Lab in
nineteen ninety five. Since when I've not been involved with
industry at all. So from nineteen nineteen eighty one to date,
it's forty five years ago that I started experimenting with
the square mesh. It's unbelieved able to think on it
that way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we'll have a celebration for its fiftieth anniversary.
Speaker 2: Let's do might need to have one earlier than that.
Speaker 1: We'll get Tom Harks along.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, We've got all the skippers along. That'll be
some sh.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, have you online presence we're going to listeners fully Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, I'm not on social media or or anything. No, well,
actually that's not true. I'm on Facebook, but it's just
family and close friends, so I know I don't have
any any means of being contacted.
Speaker 1: I would say, that's giving you a happy, live well answer.
I'm just going to fold up. But I would honestly
like to thank you. My goodness, Jack, You're going to
good down in history. I have no question of that.
Thank you very much.
Speaker 2: I hope it's in a good way.
Speaker 1: It's in a very positive way.
Speaker 2: It's well, thanks, Jim. I do appreciate you know. I
love to talk about square mesh selectivity and saving the babies.
That's what it's all about. Thank you ever so much.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it was your words to me on the
pier one night back in the eighties. Survive and thrive, Yes,
survive and thrive.