Fishing
Fishing is an important activity in the sea lochs, predominantly carried out from small inshore boats. Creels are set for Norway lobster (known also as prawns or scampi), velvet crabs, brown crabs, lobsters and squat lobsters. In many places winkles are collected commercially on a small scale and a wide variety of shellfish, including winkles, cockles and mussels are collected for the pot.
The seabed is also trawled for prawns, queen scallops and various fish. Heavy dredges rake the seabed for king scallops, which are also collected by divers. Fishermen hunting other commercial species in the waters off the west coast and Minch occasionally venture into the sea lochs, particularly in bad weather, but in the narrow confines of most of the sea lochs it is difficult to operate and manoeuvre larger vessels.
Sea lochs are important spawning grounds for herring, cod and whiting, and nursery grounds for many fish including herring, sprat, cod, saithe and plaice. To protect these fish spawning and nursery grounds, a number of sea lochs are closed to trawls and dredges for part of the year and a few all year round.