Síldarvinnslan’s plant in Neskaupstaður has seen a string of pelagic vessels delivering capelin catches, with over 6000 tonnes landed over last weekend as the high-value roe season is now fully underway, although a spell of heavy weather has now hit the pause button.
Fishing is taking place off the west of Iceland – and the variations in roe maturity indicate more than one migration. Pelagic vessels Börkur and Barði took their catches off the Reykjanes peninsula, and this turned out to hbe 100% mature capelin.
‘We started with a test shot to see what the state of the capelin was. This was a hundred tonnes and it showed 100% mature roe, with fish ready to spawn. We had our catch in three shots. These were very tight marks and you have to be careful not to take too much. There was a sea running as well, so we had to be cautious,’ Barði’s skipper Thorkell Pétursson said, commenting that other vessels were fishing further to the north off Breiðafjörður.
‘There has been a number of migrations this season and there’s capelin over a wide area,’ he said.
According to Polar Amaroq’s skipper Geir Zoëga, the situation further north is different.
‘We had our catch in two shots north of Ólafsvík and Polar Ammassak was in the same grounds,’ he said.
‘The roe in the capelin isn’t as developed as it is off Reykjanes. That indicates a westerly migration. But we saw a lot of roe in our catch, and 18%. That’s a pretty high proportion,’ he said.
