Withy-pots are traditional crab and lobster pots made from willow branches, a sustainable and plastic free alternative to modern creel pots
The Issue
Withy-pots are traditional crab and lobster pots made from willow branches.
The craft of creating these pots has been placed on the critically endangered list of craft heritages, with only 6 makers in the country.
Withy pots have a short lifespan of around one year. The use has therefore declined over the years in favour of the more sturdy plastic, metal or rope pots
If a plastic pot is not able to be recovered at sea, it adds to the growing marine debris in the oceans and may contribute to ghost fishing
The solution
Sarah Ready has been keeping the heritage of withy pot making alive, recently being awarded with trainee withy pot maker of the year.
Withy pots are a more sustainable way to fish as if they are lost at sea, they will naturally biodegrade
Sarah advocates the use of withy pots as a voluntary measure to reduce the amount of pots with the benefit of less fuel to go to all the pots and less bait to fill them – building the economic sense to commercial fishermen
Process
Sarah Ready received a grant which gave her an incentive to create the withy pots and switch to a plastic free fishery
Sarah is working with the Welsh fishing industry to trial 25 withy pots and 25 hybrid pots off the welsh coast. They hosted workshops on how to create, mend and work the pots. This will be a great way to keep the craft alive and test out its feasibility with smaller inshore fishermen
The detail and variety in the way the pot has been weaved is an individual fingerprint which may be linked back to its maker.
Cornish pots are recognisable with the straight sides known as ‘inkwell’ pots with an anti-clockwise spiral, compares to the pots in Devon which are characterised by their sloping sides and clockwise spiral
It takes around 5 hours to make a full sized pot, which is approximately 26-28 inches in diameter (2 feet)
"Earlier this week our willow lobster pot trial in N Wales caught their first lobsters! Fisher reported about same catch rate as conventional pots. Just a mini-lobster today, but that's fishing.."
Alec Moore, on Twitter
"The introduction of steel creels / pots wasn't a good thing . Mass production lead to huge increase in fishing effort and year round fishing in areas which were only seasonal previously . If fishermen were still limited to making their own gear it would be a different story now"
