Sea fishing may have gone through a torrid period, with falling stocks and boats being decommissioned, but there is enough confidence in its future to train a new generation of fishermen. Nick Morrison reports.

LIAM Slade has had a passion for fishing since he was four or five years old. As he got older, his uncle took him out on trips on his boat, and his interest grew. But even then, when he saw the advert in the paper he was not quite prepared for what he was letting himself in for.

"I didn't really know what I was coming into. I just thought it was fishing and I will give it a go," says the 17-year-old. "I didn't know it was going out to sea, but the first time I went out I loved it."

Liam is an apprentice at the Whitby and District Fishing Industry Training School, the only institution in the country which provides recognised training for sea fishermen. At the end of his 18 months, he will be a qualified deckhand.

"I just like it, I don't know why. It is different to being on land, it gives you a chance to get away from everything. I like the smell of fish," says Liam, from Blackhall, County Durham.

As long as man has fished the sea, the skills and temperament needed have been passed on from generation to generation. But now, the sons of fishermen are choosing not to follow their fathers, whether through a reluctance to embrace the hardships of a life at sea, or a belief that the industry has no future.

Declining fish stocks and the EU Common Fisheries Policy has sent the number of boats operating out of British ports into steep decline. Fifty years ago, the industry employed around 50,000 fishermen, now it is around 12,000.

But the impression of an industry in a state of crisis is mistaken, says Anthony Hornigold, the former engineering lecturer who runs the Whitby course.

'Because of the bad publicity that the fishing industry has had there is a perception it is in a state of collapse, and it isn't, it is in a state of change," he says.

"There have been lots of boats decommissioned, but that means the surviving boats can take advantage of this, although they are needing to change species. We have been totally preoccupied with cod and there are more species that are commercially viable.

"But the result of the publicity is that there is a shortage of skilled crew."

It was in the face of this decline in the number of crew coming forward that industry leaders in Whitby, prompted by the National Federation of Fishing Organisations, set up the training school two years ago, funded by Defra, the EU, lighthouse operators Trinity House and the fishermen themselves.

Over an 18 month course, the apprentices mix the theoretical - how to recognise different fish species; radio call signs; health and safety - with practical training at sea. Each apprentice is assigned to a boat, and given the chance to use what they have learned in the classroom, and pick up what can only be learned at sea.

The apprentices are given a training allowance of £40 a week from the Learning and Skills Council and, if they live outside Whitby, are provided with accommodation and a subsistence allowance.

The training school can take up to 12 trainees at a time, aged up to 25, but a love of fish on its own is not enough to win a place.

"We usually find they come from coastal areas, and we look first of all for enthusiasm," says Mr Hornigold. "But you have got to be a certain type of person to be a fisherman, you have got to be able to accept the work patterns, which are not nine-to-five.

"You have got to be prepared to get up at two in the morning and go fishing and come back in at three in the morning and fit your life around that. That is why families tend to pass it on. It is a way of life is fishing, not just a job."

And there are some who start the course who find this way of life is not for them. This realisation usually comes once they start going out on the boats, according to Mr Hornigold, who says around half the apprentices drop out.

"Many lads cannot stand the work patterns. When you are out on a boat you might be asleep for four hours, then you will haul, then you will sort the catch for two hours and then you will have another four hours sleep.

"It is a bloody hard life, and we need young people to come into it for the right reasons. I don't want them to come into the school purely because they have got this romantic thing about sailing over the horizon.

"The point at which they drop out is when they actually get into the boats. They have got all the reasons under the sun, but at the end of the day you know it is because they can't come to terms with the work pattern," he says.

But those who do make it can look forward to a life in an industry which will go on for some time yet, he says. Cod stocks may have fallen dramatically - although he says there are signs they may have already hit their low point - but fishermen are adapting by going after other fish. Whitby has a strong lobster and crab industry, and flat fish stocks are plentiful.

It is a sign of the faith in fishing's survival that six new £1m trawlers have been built in Whitby alone over the past four years. The rules on what can be caught may be more stringent, but there is still money to be made.

Liam's boat, Defiant, chases turbot and operates between Hartlepool and Sunderland, usually just six miles off shore. As a result, he is rarely away for more than three or four days.

Before he enrolled as an apprentice fisherman, he had started a college course as a bricklayer. He lasted about a month before deciding it was not for him. So far, he's lasted rather longer out at sea.

"I don't want to be in a dead end job in a factory," he says. "After the first few weeks I thought this was what I wanted to do. I knew it was for me."