Guidance

Manage your fishing effort: Western Waters crabs and scallops

All references to Area VII are to Area VII within British Fishery Limits only. Details of the approach to managing the over 15 metre Area VII crab and scallop fishing sector to keep the fishery within UK effort limits.

Western Water crabs

Western Waters (ICES Area VII) 2025 edible and Spider Crab effort annual limit

Industry and administrations have agreed that days at sea limits will be set for vessels operating in this area for the full 2025 year. This will be enforced via a licence variation. The limit set out below will be applicable to all over 15 metre vessels with a shellfish entitlement operating in area VII and targeting crabs under the Western Waters regime.

The MMO will actively monitor days at sea uptake by vessels and review discussions will take place later in 2025 to evaluate uptake to date and discuss the management approach for the remainder of 2025.

If the UK looks like it will exceed effort limits prior to 31 December 2025 as set by the MMO, then fisheries administrations will be required to close the area VII crab fishery to over 15 metre vessels for the remainder of the year in line with the Western Waters regime.

Effort use statistics is available here

The allocation of days from 00.01 hours on 1 January 2025 to 31 December 2025 is 220 days.

Scope

The Western Waters Days at Sea scheme detailed below applies to UK fishing vessels, 15 metre and over in length, fishing for Edible/Brown Crab (Cancer pagurus) and spider crab (Maja squinado) in International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) Area VII.

Days at Sea Limits

The maximum number of days a vessel can fish for crabs in ICES Area VII is established in the vessel’s fishing licence.

Any days remaining at the end of a management period will not be transferred across management periods. Days at sea are not transferrable between fishing vessels.

The number of days spent at sea will be monitored for enforcement purposes by MMO/Devolved Administration offices. However, it is your responsibility to monitor your uptake and be aware of how many days you have available. If you wish to check the information held by the MMO on your vessel’s activity you should contact your local MMO coastal office.

It is an offence to exceed the maximum number of days at sea established in your vessel’s fishing licence, and action may be taken in accordance the relevant fisheries administration’s compliance and enforcement strategy. The effort limit is an annual limit and is set in consultation with the vessels active in the fishery, with the aim of maximising uptake of available effort. For 2025 the annual limit will be reviewed throughout the year, and will be increased if fleet size and activity levels permit.

Recording of days at sea

Days at sea are counted in calendar days (midnight to midnight) or part thereof. For example a fishing trip leaving port at 0200h and returning to port at 0100h the following day counts as two calendar days. In comparison, a fishing trip leaving port at 1000h and returning at 1700h the following day is also counted as 2 calendar days.

Trip data must be recorded in UTC (universal time constant) with no daylight saving adjustment.

Steaming trips are not counted against a vessel’s days at sea providing that no gear is deployed or hauled, no landings are made and vessel activity is declared as ‘CRU – steaming/cruising’ on the electronic logbook.

Time at sea will not count against a vessel’s allocation where it comes to the aid of another vessel in need of emergency assistance or because it is transporting an injured person for emergency medical aid. You must advise your port of administration in such cases.

Western Water Scallops

Once your allocation of days are used

Any vessel that has exhausted its allocation of days must cease fishing for scallops in Area VII immediately and return to port. The vessel may then undertake other activities.

The allocation of days from 00.01 hours on 01 July – 30 September 2025 is 75 days.

2025

Days at sea

The Western Waters Days at Sea scheme detailed below applies to UK fishing vessels, 15 metres and over in length, fishing for either king (Pecten Maximus) or queen scallops (Aequipecten opercularis) in ICES Area VII.

Quarterly Days at Sea Limits

Any days remaining at the end of a management period will not be transferred across management periods.

Days at sea are not transferrable between fishing vessels.

The number of days spent at sea will be monitored for enforcement purposes by MMO/Devolved Administration offices. However, it is your responsibility to monitor your uptake and be aware of how many days you have available. If you wish to check the information held by the MMO on your vessels activity you should contact your local MMO coastal office.

It is an offence to exceed the maximum number of days at sea established in the vessels’ fishing licence and action may be taken in accordance with the relevant fisheries administration’s compliance and enforcement strategy.

Recording of days at sea

Days at sea are counted in calendar days (midnight to midnight) or part thereof. For example a fishing trip leaving port at 0200h and returning to port at 0100h the following day counts as two calendar days. In comparison, a fishing trip leaving port at 1000h and returning at 1700h the following day is also counted as two calendar days. Trip data must be recorded in UTC (universal time constant) with no daylight saving adjustment.

Steaming trips are not counted against a vessel’s days at sea providing that no gear is deployed or hauled, no landings are made and vessel activity is declared as ‘CRU – steaming/cruising’ on the electronic logbook. Time at sea will not count against a vessels allocation where it comes to the aid of another vessel in need of emergency assistance or because it is transporting an injured person for emergency medical aid. You must advise your port of administration in such cases.

Once your allocation of days are used

Any vessel that has exhausted its allocation of days must cease fishing for scallops in Area VII immediately and return to port. The vessel may then undertake other activities.

Further information

How to inspect your fishing gear and make sure your time at sea is not counted against your effort Skippers or owners are required to notify their local coastal office if they intend to go to sea to inspect their fishing gear.

On electronic logbooks, these trips should be coded with a departure message of ‘Other’ (OTH), with a comment stating that you are going to inspect your fishing gear. This will allow MMO to make vessel monitoring system data with gear inspections consistent with one another.

No landings must be made during these trips. This will ensure that we do not include these trips in effort uptake calculations.

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Updates to this page

Published 11 June 2014
Last updated 1 September 2025 show all updates
  1. Monday 01 September 2025 update.

  2. Wednesday 22 January 2025 update.

  3. Update 01/11

  4. 29 August 2024 update

  5. Update 20 April 2024

  6. 2024 update

  7. This sentence "The allocation of days from 00.01 hours on 1 January 2023 to 31 December 2023 is 280 days." was changed from 220 days.

  8. Scallop and crab statistics updated

  9. allocation update

  10. allocation changes

  11. 06 June 2023 update.

  12. 24 March 2023 update.

  13. Update

  14. 2023 update

  15. Update 16/08

  16. allocation change

  17. Page updated

  18. Effort figures updated

  19. Crab & Scallop updates

  20. Updated effort statistics

  21. The allocation of days from 00.01 hours on 01 April 2021 – 30 June 2021 is 55 days. - Update

  22. Final December Stats

  23. updated with December 2020 provisional effort uptake link

  24. Changes made to page in line with revised guidance

  25. updated figures

  26. Updated for 17th November

  27. Updated Western Waters figures

  28. updated effort figures

  29. updates to data made

  30. updated figures

  31. Updated for the 11 September

  32. Updated effort figures

  33. Updated 18 August

  34. Figures updated

  35. Updated figures from 16 July 2020 data

  36. Figures updated from 2 July 2020

  37. Updated tables dated 16 June

  38. Updated figures as per stats from 8 June 2020

  39. figures updated

  40. Updated with statistics dated 14 May 2020

  41. Updated with 2020 information

  42. updated with link to final effort statistics for December 2019

  43. Updated with provisional December 2019 effort uptake

  44. Updated figures

  45. Effort tables updated

  46. Updated figures

  47. updated figures

  48. Change in date allocation

  49. Figures updated

  50. Figures updated

  51. Figures updated

  52. Map added

  53. Figures Updated

  54. Statistics updated

  55. Figures updated

  56. Figures update 23 May 2019

  57. Updated figures

  58. Figures Updated

  59. Latest Statistics Added

  60. Link to December 2018 data added

  61. 2019 limits added

  62. Figures updated

  63. Figures updated

  64. Figures updated

  65. Figures updated

  66. Figures updated

  67. Allocation days changed

  68. Figures updated

  69. The allocation of days from 00.01 hours on 1 January 2018 to 31 December 2018 is 160 days changed to 200

  70. Figures updated

  71. Figures updated

  72. Crab and scallop effort uptake updated to 26 June 2018

  73. Figures updated

  74. Figures updated

  75. Figures updated

  76. Figures updated

  77. Figures updated

  78. Figures updated

  79. 2018 data added

  80. 2017 data added

  81. text updated

  82. Figures updated

  83. Figures updated

  84. Figures updated

  85. Figures updated

  86. Figures updated

  87. Figures updated

  88. Allocation of days changed

  89. Figures updated

  90. Page updated

  91. Figures updated

  92. Figures updated

  93. Figures updated

  94. Figures updated

  95. Figures updated

  96. Figures updated

  97. Figures updated

  98. Figures updated

  99. Figures updated

  100. Figures updated

  101. Figures updated

  102. Figures updated

  103. 2017 data added

  104. Figures updated

  105. 2017 data added

  106. Crab and scallop data updated

  107. Figures updated

  108. Figures updated

  109. Figures updated

  110. Figures updated

  111. Figures updated

  112. Figures updated

  113. Figures updated

  114. Dates changed

  115. Days at sea updated

  116. Figures updated

  117. Figures updated

  118. Figures updated

  119. Figures updated

  120. European limit (kilowatt days) for area 7 scallops updated

  121. Figures updated

  122. Figures updated

  123. Figures updated

  124. Figures updated

  125. Figures updated

  126. Figures updated

  127. Figures updated

  128. Figures updated

  129. Figures updated

  130. Figures updated

  131. Figures updated

  132. Text updated

  133. Effort tables updated

  134. Crab and Scallop uptake figures updated as at 8 December 2015

  135. Figures updated

  136. Figures updated

  137. Figures updated

  138. Figures updated

  139. Figures updated

  140. Figures updated

  141. Figures updated

  142. Figures updated

  143. Figures updated

  144. Figures updated

  145. Figures updated

  146. Figures updated

  147. Figures updated

  148. Following a meeting in Plymouth on the 22 July 2015 it was agreed to increase the effort limit from 150 days to 190 days for the year.

  149. Figures updated

  150. Figures updated

  151. Spreadsheets updated

  152. Figures updated

  153. Figures updated

  154. Tables updated

  155. Dutch consultation information removed

  156. Figures updated

  157. Crab and scallop effort figures updated

  158. Figures updated

  159. Figures updated

  160. Figures updated 12 May 2015

  161. Crab and scallop effort figures updated

  162. Crab and scallop effort figures updated

  163. Effort statistics updated

  164. The allocation of days from 00.01 on 1 April 2015 to 23.50 on 30 June 2015 is 60 days added

  165. Next uptake statistics will be published in April 2015 text added

  166. Crabs and Scallops effort data updated

  167. Crabs and Scallops effort data updated

  168. Consultation into conducting a scallop-demersal effort swap with the Netherlands added

  169. Updated the date of meeting

  170. Effort tables updated

  171. Crab and Scallop effort tables updated

  172. Effort figures updated

  173. Effort tables updated

  174. Western waters crab rules added

  175. Scallop and Crab days for 2015 set.

  176. Effort tables updated

  177. Western Waters Scallop Rules for 2015 added and the allocation of days for January to December 2014 changed from 52 to 150 days.

  178. Effort tables updated 12 December 2014

  179. Effort tables updated

  180. Effort tables updated

  181. Change to scallop days

  182. Effort tables updated

  183. Effort tables updated

  184. Effort tables updated

  185. Effort tables updated

  186. Effort tables updated

  187. Effort tables updated

  188. Scallop days increased

  189. Effort tables updated

  190. Crab and scallops effort uptake uploaded

  191. Effort tables updated

  192. Effort tables updated

  193. Effort tables updated

  194. Effort tables updated

  195. Crab and Scallop effort updated

  196. Effort tables updated

  197. amended page in line with licence variation

  198. Effort tables updated

  199. Effort tables updated.

  200. Effort tables updated

  201. Effort tables updated

  202. Effort tables updated

  203. effort tables updated

  204. Updated effort tables

  205. Crab and Scallop effort updated

  206. Scallop and Crab effort updated - 25 July

  207. Crab and scallop effort updake updated

  208. Crab and scallop effort uptake tables updated

  209. First published.

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