Closed area · Scottish Government (Marine Scotland)
Bottom-towed gear prohibited
Offshore Fishing (Prohibition of Fishing Methods) (Scotland) Order 2025 · in force since 2025-10-16
A CAUGHT review has read the instrument behind this closure, rather than relying on the summary published with the boundary. Where the two differ, the instrument governs; this reading was made on 2026-09-05.
demersal mobile gear (bottom trawls, seines other than demersal seines, dredges) in the Berwick Bank, Montrose, and Scalp Bank & Wee Bankie zonal areas
'Demersal seine' vs 'pair seine' vs 'fly-shooting' are distinct gears in practice and the Order's own definitions govern. A vessel recorded merely as 'seiner' is NOT automatically exempt — the specific gear has to be established before this carve-out is applied to it.
Demersal mobile gear is prohibited, with an explicit carve-out for demersal seines. The carve-out matters in practice rather than academically: pair-seiners and dual-purpose seiner/trawlers work this ground, and their activity here may be entirely lawful. It is also why this closure cannot be adjudicated from its gear class alone — the instrument has to be read.
Demersal mobile gear (other than demersal seines) prohibited in all three zonal areas (Berwick Bank, Montrose, and Scalp Bank & Wee Bankie).
Summary as published in the source dataset, shown for comparison. A dataset paraphrase can be narrower or wider than the instrument it summarises, and finding out which is the work above.
Vessels are named only on cases that read CAUGHT and have been examined by a reviewer. Every other case is linked without a name: most are resolved, and naming a boat on a page about the closure would carry an accusation the assessment does not support.
What a case here means. A CAUGHT case is a reason to look, not a verdict. Each one is judged on three independent factors — was it fishing, here and then; what gear does the vessel actually use; and what was prohibited there at that time — and the weakest of the three decides. Most cases are resolved.
Boundaries and rule summaries come from the published datasets named at the foot of this page and can contain errors; the legislation is the authority. If you believe this closure is described wrongly, tell us at contact@caught.org.uk.
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