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Filming for Coast (2006) by Tony Talbot
Mid July this year I spent a day and a half at sea with a BBC film crew, filming
for the new series of Coast. Their interest was the tagging programme of the
thornback ray (also known as skate), which is a regular catch in our area. They
specifically wanted to film a fisherman such as myself, who uses longlines as
part of his gear. I have caught several tagged rays myself; these are dispatched
straight to the CEFAS (Centre for Environment, Fisheries & Aquaculture Science)
laboratories at Lowestoft for scientific analysis, with a reward for the
fisherman of £25.
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fantastic, the researcher Freya, who I’d been chatting to for weeks and the
producer Hannah both spent an afternoon with Kerry and I before filming,
going over everything and getting to know us. This really helped to calm any
pre-filming jitters. On the day of filming they rolled up with a cameraman,
a soundman, a CEFAS expert named Euan and the presenter Miranda
Krestovnikoff, and off we went, me on my boat and the BBC on one they’d
hired. Nerves for me were not a
problem. The gang were so easy to get on with we spent much of the day
laughing. The worry was the variables, things that were beyond my control,
such as the weather and the movements of the fish. Less than two weeks
before I’d been catching plenty of skate but the spring run seemed to have
dried up, the fish were few and far between!
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Tony and the Thornback Ray the crew were
filming. |
Thankfully it all worked out fine and I caught
some fish for Euan to tag and release. Also Miranda and Hannah had become very
interested in our little fish business and decided to film me preparing some of
the fish ready for sale at our stall and then finally to film Kerry selling it.
The new series of Coast is due to be shown this autumn, we believe we will be in
episode eight. Just how much of what was filmed is eventually shown, remains to
be seen, but whatever the outcome I had a great couple of days and it was an
experience for us both.
UPDATE
In September we received an email from the BBC
thanking us for our contribution but stating that regrettably, due to the amount
of footage they had for the East Coast area the piece about the thornback ray
would not be included. We were gutted! However, just as we sat down to watch the
last programme in the series, it was there in the intro. We didn't see much of
Tony and his boat (blink and they were gone!) but we were really pleased that
all his hard work had resulted in an interesting and informative piece about one
of our local species.
Kerry Talbot
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