From sea to plate in pictures
The sky is clear and the sea calm as the Libby Lou sails out of Brighton marina with the sunrise. Skipper Steve Eason steers his 10-metre day boat out to where he laid eight 500-metre-long nets the day before, a mile off the Sussex coast. He is after slip sole, a smaller fish than Dover sole its size means it is unsuitable for the UK market so it is exported to France and Holland. It has been a big tide and he is not optimistic. I'm just hoping that we catch something that will be of interest to a local restaurant as I try to follow one fish from sea to plate.
The Channel is like a millpond, but once we start pulling in the nets the boat turns into a rodeo ride. Eason suppresses a smile as the photographer and I try to steady ourselves. The 29-year-old has been working as a fisherman since he left school and the Libby Lou is the second boat he has owned, costing him £50,000 secondhand. Going out on his own most days he only takes another crew member if he goes drifting for bass it's a tough and potentially dangerous job. But for Eason, along with the pleasure of being out at sea, there is the thrill of the unknown: will he pull up a lucrative catch, or empty nets? Some days he can make as much as £1,000; on others he could find all his nets have been destroyed by a passing trawler, costing him around £4,000.
