Fishing for capelin has been suspended since last week due to some very difficult weather and plenty of sea ice in the Denmark Strait. It seems that the larger capelin are keeping to just this area, as only smaller grades of capelin have been seen on fishing grounds north of Iceland.
Víkingur AK landed around 200 tonnes of capelin at Vopnafjördur last week after its third trip of the season. The previous trip resulted in a 1500 tonne landing.
According to Vilhjálmur Vilhjálmsson, departmental head at HB Grandi’s pelagic division, conditions have been very difficult with constant northerly or north-easterly storms in the Denmark Strait and sea ice over a wide area. He said that Víkingur had searched for capelin in the Kolbeinsey area on its way to land in Vopnafjördur, but without success.
Víkingur is now in port at Akranes, with Ingunn AK and Lundey NS due to sail as soon s the weather improves and the sea ice situation improves. Forecasts indicate that this could be at the end of the week at the earliest. As well as capelin, HB Grandi has a 1000 tonne quota on Icelandic summer spawning herring that Faxi RE is expected to fish in Breidafjördur in early November.
