FISHING
Beer has for centuries been involved in making a living from the sea. There is a story in Beer that it was fishermen from Beer that established fishing at Brixham and that it was Brixham men that first set up the fishing industry at Hull. The saying goes, Beer made Brixham and Brixham made Hull. 

Beer is now one of the only places left (apart from Hastings) in England where they pull the fishing fleet up onto the shingle beach every night. 

One of the main methods is the setting of pots for shellfish, traditionally for edible crabs and lobsters, and sometimes prawns, but in recent times whelks have been fished and spider crabs (previously thrown back) have been caught for foreign markets. There was at one time even a market for very small crabs called velvets or fiddlers. Dougy Orly once told me he believed that Beer was the largest shellfish port in the country that did not have a harbour. A lobster pot and a crab pot are the same, but for the bait. Fresh bait would target crabs and stale bait for lobsters. Prawn pots and whelk pots would have a smaller mesh net on them for obvious reasons. Pots were traditionally made of locally cut withies and woven together similar to basket work, but nowadays they can be made of wood, metal, polythene tube or anything that lends itself to the job. Whelk pots are even made out of plastic buckets. Crayfish sometimes caught west of Start Point have only very occasionally been caught locally. Another shellfish that has increased in importance recently is scallops or queens. These are caught in heavy iron dredges which can do a lot of damage to the sea bed, especially the larger boats with several dredges on both sides.

Trawling is another traditional method of fishing. It was carried out in the days of sail as was potting, though trawling under sail meant that you needed wind, so the summer season was not that good. I have been told the old men in days gone by would wait at the top of Sea Hill in rougher weather, along Pond's Wall opposite the Anchor Inn, and keep saying "its to rough to go", then when night came and they couldn't see how bad it was, their pockets and stomachs would drive them to sea. All sorts of fish can be caught in a trawl, skate and duncow, flat fish such as plaice, megrims, dabs and others, even lobsters may sometimes be caught in a trawl. 

Years ago when I was a boy all the boats were pushed out and pulled up the beach by hand and so much help was needed. The young would take down the hook and help gather trees, (greased timbers, best made of holly or blackthorn, put under the boat to facilitate movement) the youth would shift and position the big trees and man the capstans, whilst the older men would help out with the gutting of the fish. Their reward would be the rumps and frames for pot bait or a modest hand-out of less marketable fish such as small skate, called fryers. As kids we used to help on the capstans, running around on the inside over the capstan where the journey was shorter and height lower. However, on the section around the back of the capstan your feet would be off ground, so one had to swing on the timber prompting a ticking off or a quick cuff for not pulling your weight.

Longlining was another method once used, but not any more. As kids we used to set our own from rowing boats. The Beer word for a longline is a bolty. These were mainly used to catch skate or duncow. Duncow is the local word for Dog Fish or Rock Salmon. It is a small member of the shark family. There are others caught such as Huss and Nurse. Incidentally the action of gutting a duncow is, to rape a duncow. Their skin is very rough and can be used as sandpaper. 

There is some hook and line fishing for mackerel in the season, mainly by the tourists now, but sometimes the fishermen will go with feathers to fish commercially.

The setting of fixed nets for bass and pollock etc. is still used, but these have to be tended quickly as sea birds or the occasional seal will take the catch. Salmon will also sometimes be trapped in these fixed engines, but this is illegal as the salmon belong to the river not the sea. Fixed nets around the numerous wrecks in Lyme Bay are also used to catch large pollock.