According to Guðlaugur Jónsson, skipper of HB Grandi’s pelagic vessel Venus, which sailed last night from Vopnafjörður, catches have been good in the last couple of trips.
‘There’s plenty of fish to be seen. We have been taking our allocation in three fairly short tows in these trips,’ he said, adding that they have been fishing south of Hvalbak for the last two trips.
‘The weather has been good all summer, although we had two days of heavy weather in the trip before last. Then the mackerel showed up as he weather calmed down and we had a good trip,’ he said, commenting that tows have normally been fairly short at around five hours, while earlier in the summer longer tows and more of them were needed to finish a trip with a decent catch.
While Venus was discharging in Vopnafjördur, its sister vessel Víkingur has finished its trip south Hvalbak and is steaming for Vopnafjörður.
‘The weather has been fine but it’s starting to freshen now’ said skipper Hjalti Einarsson.
‘We were unlucky with our first haul this trip and ripped the belly of the trawl. After that everything has gone well but we have to hunt for our fish. There were more tows this trip; five in all, and it looks like we have our allocation for the factory, which is around 750 tonnes. The mackerel are good quality fish in fine condition and they are just what production ashore needs.’
