Musselling

Morecambe's mussel fishing industry prospered in the late 19th century. Musselling was sometimes undertaken by fishermen when shrimps and flukes were unavailable or out of season. In 1905 an official report stated that 59 men were involved in trawler fishing but that a further 100 men, 50 boats and 12 carts were engaged in mussel fishing.

Traditionally the mussels were gathered using long or short-handled craams (also known as hand drags) - rough iron rakes with wooden handles - which were used from a boat or by individual fishermen standing on the rocky skears where the mussels grew. The long-handled craams, up to three feet wide with handles 20 feet long, were used from the sturdy mussel boats when the tide covered the skears. The mussels which were raked off the rocks by this method were caught in net bags attached to the craams and pulled up into the boat. Small two-pronged forks, also known as hand pikes, were used for prising the mussels off the skears.

Sometimes the boats were grounded on the skears and the mussels which the fishermen collected in willow (now wire) baskets, or tiernels , were emptied into the boats. When the tide flooded and work ended for the day, the boats returned to the promenade with the mussels which were then washed, bagged and forwarded to market. Some mussel boats also operated from Flookburgh in the north of the Bay.