‘Islands’ fishermen should pull together and embarrass politicians into taking action’

Nigel Dupont said the first three miles should be reserved for recreational Bailiwick fishing boats only, with commercial vessels banned, to protect the remaining stocks.

‘Alderney is unique in the regard that it owns its own seabed and three-mile limit, so we own our waters and that’s why our States, if they had the balls and the incentive, could bring in legislation and do what I’ve been asking, before our fishing stocks go the way of the dodo, and the way our crab and lobster went from 40 years ago,’ he said.

‘I fish every year and I keep a very tight log of what I catch, just for my own interest everyday, and the inshore brown crab has disappeared to virtually nothing. I haven’t seen a 10 pound or more bass in 15 years, the biggest bass you could probably catch last summer was probably a five pounder, which by bass standards is tiny.

‘There’s hardly any pollack to talk of, there’s dozens of mackerel all the time when they’re coming through, but brill and turbot and plaice and the prime fish like that.

‘I caught one turbot drifting for nine hours, that’s unheard of on the south banks and that’s because they’ve been trawled up by the French commercial boats as they plough through our waters.

‘We could at least protect the three miles if we had the legislation.’

Mr Dupont, who is a former commercial fisherman, was very sad to hear about a fellow island fisherman who was prevented from landing his catch in Cherbourg last week because of a blockade over post-Brexit fishing licenses.

He said it was time Channel Island fishermen pulled together to take control of the situation and embarrassed the politicians into taking action.

‘You’d have to get Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, Sark and Herm all on board and form maybe a co-operative as a central hub which the fish and shellfish would all be sold to, and then shipped directly on a bigger ship to the UK so you haven’t got 20 individual boats all going to the south coast of England.

‘It’s better to be a fist than five individual digits on a hand isn’t it?

‘The fist is much stronger than individual fingers, so come together and grasp the nettle.

‘It’s madness that the Channel Islands don’t seem to want to help or protect their fishing fleets, it seems like they’re just willing to let it go to the wall.

‘Fishing is a way of life, it’s people’s livelihoods and it’s what they love doing, and it’s in your blood.’