Fresher trawler Sturlaugur H Bödvarsson AK docked in Reykjavik this morning with 120 tonnes of fish after five days at sea, landing 80 tonnes of redfish (Sebastes marinus) and the rest of the catch was cod. Skipper Gunnar Einarsson was satisfied with his results, not least because there was exceptionally bad weather on the redfish grounds that made fishing difficult throughout the trip.
‘The last month has been unusually bad. We started this trip on the Melsekkur grounds and were there for three days. The weather was bad the whole time, with wind speeds from 20 up to 30m/s and sometime only possible to fish for a few hours at a time. But we were still able to bring in 25 to 30 tonnes of redfish each day,’ Gunnar Einarsson said. He went on to say that it is very difficult to estimate the condition of fishing grounds under these circumstances. This is normally a good time of year for catching redfish, and judging by these catches in appalling weather, the indications are that the redfish stocks are strong.
After three days on redfish, they steamed towards the traditional Westfjords fishing grounds to finish the trip on cod.
‘We were on the bank north of Patreksfjördur and the weather there was perfect. I stopped there for 14 hours, which was enough to take almost 40 tonnes of cod. There wasn’t much of other species with it and apart from the cod and redfish, we have only a few tonnes of other species on board.’
He said that the cod on Westfjords fishing grounds is of excellent quality with an average weight of 2.30kg. Steaming home he decided to dip the trawl in the Kolluál grounds, but there was little to be had there and weather was also bad with wind speeds of 17-18m/s.
