Coast

VOYAGE OF ‘THE FEMALE FISHERMAN’

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‘I would love to see the British public seeking out more of our own “home-grown” fish’

Ashley Mullenger, The Female Fisherman

Ashley Mullenger, Norfolk

‘I own and operate two boats working from Wells-next-the-Sea, which is a small seaside town on the North Norfolk coast,’ writes Ashley Mullenger. ‘My traditiona­l Scottish-built boat, Fairlass, predominan­tly catches whelks, while the smaller 8m fibreglass boat Saoirse catches crabs and lobsters too. It’s no secret that this has historical­ly been a man’s job, and as a female fisherman I am often asked, “How did that happen?”. Occasional­ly I will find myself staring down at a box full of stinking bait, splattered with mud, rain streaming down my face at some godawful time of the night, wondering the same thing! I wouldn’t change the decision I made to ditch the clean, warm office life for a second, though.

‘In 2009 I decided to book myself on a charter angling trip from Wells, and I fell in love with being at sea. The skipper, Nigel, couldn’t get rid of me afterwards so eventually he asked me to work with him. I spent my summers gutting mackerel and

cod and wrestling the odd small shark until 2013, when Nigel sold Sunbeam III and started fishing commercial­ly before buying his own boat, Never Can Tell-A.

‘Despite desperatel­y wanting to have a career at sea, I was always put off by the level of physical work involved, the danger and the fact that commercial day boats don’t generally cater for female needs. However, in 2018 Nigel asked me to come back and work for him again, and I’ve never looked back. The hours are long and often unsociable, the job can be hard on your body with hours outside in the cold, wind and rain, but I adore it. Maybe it’s the complete honesty of the job: a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay. Maybe it’s the romance of working with nature and the elements? I try not to analyse it but just appreciate how lucky I am.

‘We retired Never Can Tell-A in 2019 and replaced her with Fairlass, which Nigel’s sons predominan­tly run. Saoirse joined the fleet in October 2020 and we hope to diversify our catch with her, including fish in the longer term to sell locally. I am deeply passionate about fish caught in the UK and would love to see the British public seeking out more of our own “home-grown” fish, so that we don’t have to rely as heavily on exporting our catch abroad.’

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