And landings themselves were also down, with a ten percent decline in tonnage.

The Marine Management Organisation have just published their monthly landing statistics for November and overall there was a two per cent fall in the value of landings in Scotland to just under £55 million compared with November 2022.

However, there was a 15 per cent increase in tonnage to just over 38,000.

Fraserburgh port experienced surprisingly large falls in tonnage and value during November.

That is little better than the UK totals which saw a seven percent fall in value and a 14 per cent increase in tonnage.

Scotland accounted for 74.7 per cent of the UK value and 78.9 per cent of the tonnage of fish landed.

Four of the Scottish ports listed recorded increases in value with five declines. Six recorded increases in tonnage landed and three declines.

The value of increases were in Cullivoe (+56%), Lerwick (+29%), Kinlochbervie (+17%) and Peterhead (+15%).

The biggest declines were in Scrabster (-57%), Ullapool (-42%), Other Scotland (-40%) and Fraserburgh (-36%).

The main reason for the falls appears to be a reduction in white fish landings.

The biggest tonnage increases were in Cullivoe (+139%), Kinlochbervie (+64%), and Lerwick (+32%).

The falls were in Scrabster (-38%), Ullapool (-21%) and Fraserburgh (-10%).

Peterhead, by far the busiest fishing port in the UK, acounted for 55 per cent of the Scottish value and 41 per cent of the UK value in November.

The tonnage shares were 61 per cent of the Scottish total and 48 per cent of the UK.

The port experienced a 15 per cent rise in value to £30.3 million and a 17 per cent rise in tonnage to 23,166.

Those increases had big impacts on the overall Scottish totals.

Lerwick is the second busiest port. It recorded a massive 29 per cent increases in value to just under £11.5 million and a 32 per cent increase in tonnage.

Scrabster ranks third but experienced a surprisingly large fall in value of 57 per cent to £2.1 million and a reduction of 38 per cent in tonnage.

F raserburgh ranks fourth, also experiencing surprising large falls in tonnage and value.

Fish landings down by 36% at Fraserburgh