Andy Butler on Fishing

Ah yes, well there were no licenses. The licensing system came in just after we packed up so each boat, you had to have a license and it was specific to whatever you wanted to do so you would have a shellfish licence or a fish license what have you, but we didn’t have anything like that.

There was basically no restriction.

You could fish for whatever you liked, however you liked. There were restrictions on net size, you know, mesh size. There was no restriction on pots. You just did whatever you wanted to do.

We used to belong to … there used to be a Isle of Wight Commercial Fisherman’s Association which we belonged to and you had to have … go along to courses for safety at sea and fire at sea and you were supposed to have all this stuff in a boat, but when your boat’s only 18 foot long, you know there’s not much room for it.