Recovering creelpots Loch Eriboll Scotland

In early November we received a request for some help from local creel fisherman Kyle Farmer who is based at Loch Eriboll in the North of Scotland. He asked for our assistance recovering over 80 of his creels which had been lost after they had unfortunately been dragged in by 40ft swells over the rocky shoreline at the entrance to the Loch.

We were kept up to date on local weather conditions, eventually a break in the weather had us heading North to survey and lift as many as possible. In early December we carried out the project to return as many of Kyle’s creels as possible. Over 2 days we worked with him recovering many of them, luckily amazing visibility was on our side and we managed to recover 21. Much to our disappointment some of the creels were wedged into the rock formation while others had damaged or broken lines made finding them quite challenging due to the extensive dense kelp forests and powerful Atlantic swells.

Lost fishing gear has a huge financial impact on the fishing community as well as continuously catching and killing local marine life as a bycatch. During the recovery we were pleased to be able to release various fish including a large scorpion fish, a conga eel and various other marine life which had become trapped inside the abandoned creels.

Sadly, the sea still holds at least another 60 pots which we were unable to locate on this particular visit but with a second visit in the pipeline we are confident we can recover many of the remaining. As always Ghost Diving UK were glad to utilise our skills and knowledge to help wherever we can. We look forward to collaborating with Kyle once more in 2023 and successfully completing the project.