POOLE may have one of the largest registered fishing fleets in the country but many are part-time fishermen, unable to make a living solely from the sea.

The 105 vessels range from trawlers to small boats just used by an owner to catch fish for his own meals.

"There aren't the full-time people we used to have, who do nothing else but fishing," said Ray Knight, president of Poole and District Fishermen's Association.

"There are a few, but not that many. A lot have another job in winter and fish in the summer.

"Some have charter boats and take anglers out to catch fish.

"There are a lot of restrictions and laws and things you can and can't do," he said.

Fishermen nationwide fear extinction because of strict EU quotas, with three quarters of the UK's 5,945-strong fleet chasing just three per cent of the allowed catch of species such as cod, hake and monkfish.

Mr Knight said quotas varied weekly and covered everything caught at Poole but local fishermen had to compete with skippers from places such as Folkestone who came to fish off the coast.

"They are mainly beam trawlers which take everything there is. The small boats do not get much of a chance."

Three or four big crabbers operate from Poole along the Purbeck coast, the squid season starts soon, in the summer the mullet catch is worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, bass is also caught, there is a clam season and shellfish are farmed in the harbour.

Plaice and sole are fished in summer and skate but very few cod, most of which are caught on a rod and line in mid Channel, he said. Years ago Poole was known for its sprats but these are no longer caught.

"The smell of Poole was of sprats from November to early January," Mr Knight recalled.

"When I came back from college I always knew I was in Poole - I could smell the sprats."