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Do you remember that trip to the coast? The fisherman on the sea front selling fresh cod to the public? Boats going out on the morning tide to catch the fish for our supper on that very same night?听

15 years ago, our waters were teeming with abundant life, cod were plentiful and angling was a fulfilling and productive sport.

Sadly, this is no longer the case. In the last decade the inshore cod have all but disappeared.

Over the last ten years, with the steady decline of inshore cod stocks, many North Sea charter skippers have given up the job or taken a different direction.

George Metcalf is one of those and has left commercial fishing. He now takes fishing parties out to the North Sea and invited me to join them on a 36 hour journey 70 miles out to show me where the cod can still be caught.

When George turned 16 he went to night classes and successfully gained a Yacht Master qualification, eventually becoming the youngest coastal skipper off the Northeast Coast. He is now the Skipper of the Chieftain based at Whitby.听

The 'Chieftain' is an 80 foot-long ex-Royal Naval vessel, which was originally operated as a Sea Cadet training ship.

George explained: "The main problem with the cod crisis in the Northeast and further a field is the super-trawlers' towing massive small-mesh nets.

"Although the main intention of these trawlers is to catch sand eels, everything else in the path of the nets is taken. This targets the same species that the fish, seabirds, and marine mammals rely on for survival.

"This takes all the food away for the cod - how can they survive if there is nothing in the sea for them to eat?"

My trip started at 6pm and it was going to take twelve hours until we reached our first site. Nervous and apprehensive may be an understatement, but knowing George's background I felt completely safe.

It didn't take long before I started feeling a bit queasy - in fact I could still see land.

Caught and ready for gutting

It was a fair night and, after forcing some food down, I then tried to get some sleep. Rocking from side to side and front to back is not the best way to get some rest, but after a few hours I did manage to grab a couple of hours.

The early morning brought us a shout from the Skipper telling us that we had arrived at our first site.

Arriving on deck I saw ten eager hardened fishermen preparing to cast off. We were above one of the many wrecks in the North Sea in an area called the 'grave yard'.

The boat had to be positioned to drift over the wreck so as the fishermen's lines were in the best location for the cod. This process was repeated until moving onto the next site.

I don't mind telling you this - the sea was beginning to swell about a lot more and I had to make frequent trips downstairs to an orange bucket I had made good friends with.

Breakfast was at 9am and Crew member Joyce (my saviour) and Eddy, the deck hand master, forced me to eat something again. I think I would have been a lot worse if it wasn't for the advice from the whole crew.

The day continued fishing at different sites until 4pm where George informed us that there was a weather forecast of a force 7 northerly.

I didn't have clue what that meant, but seeing the Fishermen's faces made me realise this wasn't something to be taken lightly and so we had to cut the trip short in order to be able to get back into Whitby safely.

All though I did see fish being caught, we had to be 70 miles out in order to find them and from what George revealed to me it's getting worse year by year.

I just hope something can be sorted - I couldn't live without my fish and chips.

To see the pictures and watch the video of trip, click on the links in the 'see also' section.