The Yorkshire Dalesman Magazine (February Issue) - Lobster Fishing

Photography by George Hutton

Words by Cameron Hill

LOBSTER FISHING 

Whitby pre-dawn. Free from the summer masses and the muscles of tourists that coil around the streets and choke the harbour bridge. Only sound water against stone, street lights golden lines across the harbour mouth. 

The town stripped back to its roots, as a place for fishing.

For over a thousand years, herring, whales and other unfortunate denizens of the deep have sustained this coast’s economies. Today, lobsters and crabs pay the wages. Bridlington is the biggest shellfish port in Europe, bringing an annual £4 million of clawed income up from the depths (Scarborough is second, Whitby third). You are standing amid the crustacean catching capitals of Europe. 

To get out from the harbour, everything has to align: tide and weather and boat determining when you can sail, when you can earn. These are unsteady times. The weather is increasingly erratic, rent’s going up and bills are going up and something is killing off all the crabs and you’re patching up your wage with cash in hand work. Days spent dockside, fixing nets, fixing teas. Harbourside hives of heavy jumpers, thick waterproofs and rope worn handshakes. Some seasons you deal with journalists as much as you do shellfish. 

Out there though, it can be elemental, pure. Modern life is built around ready-made convenience. We expect everything to work, whenever we need it. Fishing does not work like that. There is a primal feel to it - live, vivid. Heading away from the harbour, out into the open, and bringing something natural, real and valuable home.