Off the coast of Cornwall from the Lizard Head to Padstow there has been, for many years, a small but locally important fishery for crawfish Palinurus elephas (Fabr.).

The fishermen had used pots and tangle nets up to the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. From 1945 tangle nets had been little used and the fishery was pursued mainly by pot fishermen until the early 1960s when divers using self-contained under-water breathing apparatus began to collect crawfish. Tangle nets were re-introduced widely in the late 1960s.