TWO of Minehead’s last commercial fishermen are taking an extra special interest in the current herring season – because their work plays an important part in research by a charity dedicated to creating marine reserves and establishing sustainable models of fishing.

For Michael Martin, now 68, and Paul Date, 57, there was a time when fishing in Minehead was paradise. They would put a small net in and catch 63 different varieties, or put out a line with 15 hooks and get at least half as many fish.

That was long ago. Nowadays, they say, you catch four or five varieties in the net, and you are lucky if you get one fish on the line.

But there is plenty more to the Bristol Channel than people are aware of – and the two men are playing their part in important research going on into the now flourishing herring population.

They are providing samples for the Bristol Channel Herring Project, which is research being run by a charity, the Blue Marine Foundation; Plymouth and Swansea universities, and the local Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority (IFCAs).

“That’s what spurs us on, with the universities and everyone else interested. We want to protect the environment,” said Paul.

Dr Adam Rees, a research officer at the Blue Marine Foundation, said the project started last year, after the Devon and Somerset IFCA made him aware of the distinct herring population in the Bristol Channel area, and the fishermen who caught them around Minehead and Clovelly.

The research being done is to establish if the herring in the channel are a distinct population or part of wider stock that swim in the Irish Sea, and at the moment analysis is going on into the local herrings’ genetics, size, vertebra, spawning season and more.

Read the full feature in today’s Free Press.