'Fisherman' is my job - even though I'm a woman
A 21-year-old woman is hoping to inspire more women to take up fishing after she was named trainee fisherman of the year.Brooke Lamond, from Glasnakille in South Skye, started going out on fishing boats with her dad when she was just eight-years-old.She lost interest when she went into secondary school, but decided to give it another go in November when a family friend offered her a job on a boat catching shellfish.Brooke said she still called herself a "fisherman", adding: "I feel like that's the name of the job role."
She told BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland programme: "I wouldn't want that to change just because I'm a woman, it's almost emphasising the point that it's a woman doing it. "I would definitely say 'fisherman' is my title."And despite doubters saying she wouldn't manage the role in a male-dominated industry, she came top in the category for the Fishing News Awards.
Brooke said: "It's nice to be able to say 'I can do that and it doesn't matter that I'm a woman, it doesn't matter who you are'."I've had that attitude since I was young. My dad's disabled so he's always been looked at like 'surely he can't do fishing'. "It was quite difficult listening to people saying I wasn't going to manage it. But I knew in my head that I could."
As the granddaughter of a boatbuilder and daughter of a fisherman, Brooke grew up very familiar with the water.She told BBC Scotland News how she spent her childhood helping her dad on his mobile trawler."My dad's been fishing for over 40 years now, so I suppose I always had it in me," she said."Because of the fishing he does, we would stay away for days at a time, sometimes a week."It was good because it was time I could spend with him. It's very different to the fishing I'm doing now."
'Really tough'
However Brooke was unsure about committing to the fishing industry as she got older."When you go to high school, your idea of what you want to do changes because there's so much going on," she said. "I needed a job through the winter last year and I never thought that fishing was going to be an option for me, but it just fell into place and it worked quite well."Family friend and local skipper James Robertson suggested she should try her hand at creel fishing on his boat off Elgol.
"At the beginning it was really tough because I was the only woman down here," she said. "And my back was quite bad."But you get used to it very quickly because you're doing it day in, day out."As long as the weather is on your side then you're doing it as often as you can."During the 12 hour shifts on the water, the pair catch prawns, lobsters and brown crab which is then taken to a local factory and shipped off to places like Spain and France.Now Brooke fishes in the winter and spends the summers months helping out on boat tours around Skye."I like the pattern I'm in," she said."Even thought it's bitterly cold and the weather's not great in the wintertime, it's still enjoyable for me."And she hopes to see other women succeeding in the industry.
"The most important thing for me is that people know women are out fishing," she said. "And you need more men like James who wouldn't think twice about taking women on, because a lot of men aren't like that and still think it's a man's job."Like many young people on Skye, Brooke plans to keep her seasonal working pattern."If I could, a skippers ticket would be quite cool to have," she said."I've not really made any set plans. I did a gel and BIAB [builder gel in a bottle] nail course the other month, I'm really interested in beauty as well. "Fishing is weather-dependent, so maybe on my off days I could do beauty. "I do what I enjoy and I'm not putting any pressure on myself."
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