The Scotch Creel

"This is another of Eddie Don's stories taken from the Munster Express. This one concerns lobster fishing."

Duncan Black was (and I hope still is) a black Scotsman from Campbeltoun situated at the tip of the Mull of Kintyre, Orgylishire. He used to come to Dunmore for the herring season and fished on one of Tommy and Jack McGrath's ringers, "The Kittiwake". We were great friends and once had a hell of fight outside the Haven Hotel over our political and religious differences. In spite of this minor setback we remained firm friends and I well remember having tea with Duncan the following morning aboard "The Kittiwake." We both nursed black eyes and swollen jaws and agreed it was "a bloody Dutchman" who started the whole thing and we were not referring to King Billy! 

In the spring of 1960, Duncan agreed to stay crewing on 'The Kittiwake" for the lobster season and one morning he came to watch Peter Roche and myself making lobster pots in the shed at the back of Pete's cottage. 

"Och laddies, them things are nae guid at all" he told us "What ye want is a guid Scotch creel." 

Now I know quite a bit about the different pots, traps, creels —call them what you will — and I told him of the French marine biologist who put a variety of devices in an aquarium tank to see which the lobster preferred and this scientist had reported that when trying to get at the bait the fish invariably go on top of the pot first. This explained, I told him, why the rather crude round French pot with its wooden neck or entrance on top was preferred to ones with side entrances, and also that our square Dunmore pot was more or less modelled on the French version, but more sophisticated with a flat bottom, four flared wire hoops and a wicker-work neck at top-centre. 

'But the tide whines in the wires of your pots and frightens the fush awa',' said Duncan, adding "I'll mak' ya a Scotch creel 'nd ye can tell me how it fushes." 

Forthwith he went out and cut some fresh sally sticks. Coming back he borrowed Peters' brace and bit and after boring the holes he made four sally hoops over one of our own manufactured bases. After covering it with net, he got out his needle and knitted two "eyes" as he called them at the side of each end of the creel. Actually it is a hit more complicated than I've described it, but I'm sure the reader gets the general idea'. 

The time came when we were ready to go to sea early in April, but Peter — conservative to the marrow — refused to include Duncan's creel in our two trains of 20 pots, 40 in all. In the third week of June that year there was a light N.E. breeze and Peter announced his intention of shooting our gear off Creadan Head — ideally situated with an offshore wind, but also a place where one must get in as close to the rocks as possible, so you shoot your pots at dead low water and haul on the following morning's high tide if you want to keep out of trouble. 

After lunch I went to the dock and baited up the two strings. One of the pots was very beaten up and "wonky" so I took it out and substituted Duncan's, as yet, unfished creel from the back of the van and to this day I don't believe Peter realised there was a "ringer" in the line-up. We set off for Creadan just before low water and Peter steered "The Elaine" as close in to the rocks as he could, whilst I hurled our gear over the side amongst them. 

Next morning we set out on the top of the tide and the wind had gone right round in a Force three or four South-Wester. 

"We'll never get 'em," said Peter as we passed Laweesh Rock and saw the waves breaking over it. 

"Then we'll have one damn good try," I answered. 

It was some awkward haul with myself pulling the pots inboard as quickly as I could and Peter standing on the "Elaine's" foredeck fending us off with the boathook. Twice she touched and each time a little swell lifted her off again.

"By God, boy I don't want to do that again in a hurry," said Peter, as we steamed home into the freshening wind. Back at the quay we took the pots ashore and I forget the exact number of lobsters there were — about a dozen, I think — but in Duncan's creel there was a monster and he was sky-blue in colour, which was odd for a start. I carefully cut the net to remove him and then laced it up again.

"The Lord save us", gasped Peter, "Did you ever see such an animal? And in the 'Scotsman's pot and all. It beats everything, for I never thought that yoke would fish." 

It was indeed the biggest lobster I have ever encountered and we took it up to the Butcher Power's to weigh it on the scales there. The Guinness Book of Records states there was one lobster of a stone weight caught in a trawl off Donegal. Ours was an ounce short of six pounds and how it managed to gain entry into Duncan's virginal pot remains a mystery to me. Needless to say the Scotch creel remained in our train for the rest of that season.