Fife fishing industry shows recovery with above national average landings

The data published by Marine Scotland shows that the Anstruther port recorded landings worth £4.7m - up 22% on 2021.

The port includes Burntisland, Crail, Methil, Leven, Pittenweem, St Andrews, Anstruther and St Monans.

Tonnage also went up 10.7%, ranking the port 14th in Scotland.

The numbers were a boost to the traditional industry, but are still down on the £7.3m haul in 2019, before the pandemic.

With the country in lockdown, 2020 saw a massive 47% drop in value of fish landings.

In terms of tonnage, shellfish accounted for 98% of the Anstruther district total.

The biggest landings were of nephrops (68%), razor fish (13%) and lobsters (7%).

In terms of value, shellfish accounted for 99% of the total.

The most valuable species landed were razor fish (32% of the total), nephrops (31%) and lobsters (28%).

The Marine Scotland report shows that there were 100 registered fishing vessels in the Anstruther district- just under 5% of the Scottish total of 2,088.

There were 130 registered fishers, who were 3.1% of the national total of 4,241.

Those percentages are much higher than those for the weight and value of landings, so the catch per Anstruther fisher was well below the national average with many local fishers only working part-time.