‘There are huge amounts of golden redfish on the Hali grounds and that needs to be kept in mind this close to the end of the quota year. We had two unexpectedly large hauls of redfish, and that almost finished the trip for us,’ said Eiríkur Jónsson, skipper of Brim’s fresher trawler Akurey, which docked in Reykjavík before the weekend, before heading back to fishing grounds off the west of Iceland.
He said that the trip began on the Hali grounds. The bulk of the catch was cod, with some saithe. The result of these big redfish hauls was that he decided to haul the gear and shift to the Thverálshorn area.
‘We had in fact just one tow on the Thverálshorn, and that was cod and saithe,’ he said, adding that he decided to change grounds again.
‘I decided to try the shallow grounds off Patreksfjörður. There was a great deal of large, good quality cod, but the amount of haddock increased while we were there. Exactly the same happened at this point last year. The cod are there to prey on herring, which are spawning, and the haddock arrive to feed on the eggs.’
He said that eventually the volume of haddock became too much, and there was no option but to haul and go elsewhere.
‘The trip was coming to an end, so we decided to finish up in the Skerja Deeps to try and find some deep redfish. We managed two hauls and had between 12 and 14 tonnes of deep redfish. That should be enough to fill a container,’ said Eiríkur Jónsson, adding that the overall catch for the trip was 170 tonnes. The bulk of this is cod, plus saithe, golden redfish and haddock as well as some deep redfish.
