The Budding Rose catches its fish by a method of fishing known as the Pair-Seine. The Pair-Seine was first used by Scottish Seine net vessels approximately 15 years ago who wanted to keep fishing during the long dark winter nights rather than stop fishing altogether ( the seine net is predominately a daylight fishery ). Today there are very few whitefish vessels working out of Peterhead using the seine-net. Most whitefish vessels are either working the Pair-Seine, Pair-Trawl ( both methods of fishing are very similar however the Pair-Trawl tend to work on harder ground, and the length of warp / rope between the vessels and the net is usually not so long ) or work the single trawl using otter boards. As the name suggests the pair-seine involves the two boats, in this case the Budding Rose and the Lapwing working as a team. As you can imagine for a pair to be successful means close cooperation between both vessels and the crews. Skipper Peter Bruce ( Budding Rose ) and Brian Buchan ( Lapwing ) are in constant communication with each other over the VHF radio, so that both vessels are working as " One " especially the time of towing the net. If for some reason their towing engine speeds are not exactly harmonised the net will not be coming even and there is every possibility that a valuable haul will be wasted and no fish will be caught whatsoever.
Good communications is also vitally important in poor weather when the vessels have to come together to " buckle up ". This is where one vessel has to come extremely close to the other so that they can pass their end of the warp over to the partner vessel, so it can be attached to the net and that the gear can be shot out and the tow can begin. After the gear is shot out they tow the net for about 4 hours maintaining a speed of about 2.5 knots at a distance of about 0.5 miles apart, the net is about a distance of 0.8 miles on their stern.

Types of net used
When working the Bergen Bank in the summer the Budding Rose and the Lapwing each carry a "clean net". The term "clean" means it`s a net for working relatively soft ground. A clean net is usually made of about 3mm polypropylene twine and the footrope ( the piece of the net that makes contact with the sea bed ) is usually made of small discs of about 8 inches for approximately 80 feet in length at the centre of the net, the other 100 feet is the length of the footrope of each wing of the net and is made up of lead rope ( to keep the net close to the sea bed ).
In the winter months when working round the Shetland Islands the nets are usually made of much tougher twine about 5mm polypropylene and the footrope is reinforced with rubber discs ( usually cut out from old tractor or lorry tyres ) of up to 16 inches in diameter, this keeps the foot of the net off the sea bed and prevents it being torn.