The Last Fishermen of the East Coast

Men have always fished in the Firth of Forth in Scotland, almost anything from oysters to white fish over the centuries. In the 60′s up to the 80′s, fishermen used to land hundreds of boxes of fish in Pittenweem harbour daily and nobody ever thought there would be no white fish to catch. In the mid 90′s though, fish were in too small quantity to be viable anymore.

There is not just one but a few reasons for fish stock collapse in the area and the main ones are: the decline of sand eels, one of fish food supply, that were caught in great quantities by large Danish trawlers for industrial use in the 90s; overfishing (using new mechanical and electronic equipments and bigger nets in the 70s and 80’s), as well as rising North Sea temperatures.

As a result many fishermen were forced to get out of the industry and the number of vessels decreased by almost half. There are currently 17 nephrops trawlers and 15 lobster boats in Pittenweem harbour. The vessels also got smaller and they are now crewed by fewer men.

Langoustines have also gone smaller in size and numbers over the years but as demand is still high, prices remain high enough and fishermen keep fishing all year long, except during the stormy winter days.

The market is opened 7 days a week to fishermen. A trawler can catch more than 300kg of langoustines in a night or a day at sea while a lobster boat on its own can catch up to 120 lobsters (depending on the time of the year).

Crabs and lobsters are today as important as langoustines in Pittenweem.

Pittenweem’s fishermen’s cooperative (FMA) sells to Scottish companies that resell the products to the continent, mainly to France and Spain, but also to Portugal, Belgium, Germany and North of Italy. Tailed prawns are the only product that is sold to the UK scampi market.