The Last Mud Horse Fisherman

A mud horse is a wooden sledge that is pushed by a fisherman across tidal flats. Adrian Sellick of Bridgewater Bay, UK, may be the last man in the world skilled in this fishing technique:

Mr Sellick was first taken out on a mud-horse with his father when he was just six-years-old, and he remembers watching him and trying to learn the technique.

The mud-horse itself is a hand-built wooden sledge which enables fishermen to navigate his way over the treacherous mudflats of Bridgwater Bay, where the technique was used by many families only a couple of generations ago.

This then allows him to slide to the tide's edge, where stakes are battered into the mud and nets strung between them.

After the tide comes in and the waters withdraw, the fish and shrimps appear. The fish will likely be cod and whiting in the winter; skate and sea bass in the summer.

Link | Photo: SWNS