15 January, 2008

FISHERMEN provided Shetland with their biggest day of landings for the past decade yesterday (Monday).

Ten white fish boats landed a total of 2,300 boxes of a mixture of fish at the morning markets in Lerwick and Scalloway.

Ritchie Simpson, of fish agents LHD, said the surge of landings had happened because so many boats had all decided to land their catches at the same time after the new year’s fishing was held up by bad weather.

“It’s a lot more than we’ve had in a wee while, probably eight or ten years,” Mr Simpson said yesterday afternoon.

“A lot of boats started fishing at the same time and it just happened that they all came back in at the same time too.”

Other fishmarkets around Scotland’s north east, such as Peterhead, also reported large catches after the new year gales kept boats in the harbour for the first few days of the year.

Yesterday six boats landed 1,505 boxes at Lerwick, while four boats landed 795 boxes at Scalloway.