John Luff and John Woodford on Fishing

Lisa: So, tell me a bit about the bait.

John L: Salt fish normally. We used to salt mackerel and salt herring.

John W: But when bait was short, we used to have fishermen come up … chicken’s heads…

John L: Chicken’s heads, yes.

John W: … and things like that. Anything to put in, anything that we didn’t want, instead of throwing it away, you’d stick it …

John L: Another thing they used to use would you believe, is gorse in flower.

John W: Do they?

John L: ‘Cos most prawns and lobsters go by smell, even though they’re under water and obviously gorse has got something that attracts them. It was a prickly job putting it in the pot.

They used to try and catch enough to salt down, you know, to use ‘cos salt bait was the best for lobsters and prawns, but fresh bait for crabs.

When I was fishing in the spring, we always used to have a net out permanently and we used to do the net first and any fish you had in them you would use for bait for the crab. Fresh fish is ideal for crab. But, those were the days.