‘The New year looks promising. Fishing is good, as long as you’re in the right spot, and the weather hasn’t troubled us. There’s been the occasional storm, as you can expect at this time of year, but in between, fishing has been fine,’ said Jóhannes Ellert Eiríksson, skipper of Brim’s fresher trawler Viðey, which was due to sail today from Reykjavík once landing was complete.
‘This is just a quick stopover for us. We docked last night with a full trip. Most of the catch was cod, plus we had some deep redfish, golden redfish and saithe. This is all large, fine quality fish, and the condition of the cod and the saithe reminds us that the winter season isn’t far off.’
He said that the trip began in the Víkuráll Gully, where most of this trip’s cod was caught.
‘From there we went south to the Skerja Deeps with the aim of taking our allocation of redfish for this trip. We managed that, but the bulk of the catch there was golden redfish and saithe,’ he said, and added that from there they headed home.
Viðey was the Icelandic fleet’s top catcher last year with a green weight catch of around 10,300 tonnes. This is the kind of result that can only be achieved with a good ship and a picked crew. On top of this are the sacrifices the crew make due to the pandemic.
‘We’re pretty much in quarantine,’ Jóhannes Ellert Eiríksson said. ‘At any rate, we all remained on board while this trip’s catch was landed.’
