‘We’re waiting to start fishing. We run it to fit in with the processing schedule at Vopnafjordur so that the herring is at its freshest when it goes for processing. Ingunn AK is in Vopnafjordur now to land and we’ll be towing opposite Lundey NS this time. We expect that we’ll get a green light to start fishing later today,’ said chief mate and relief skipper Hjalti Einarsson on HB Grandi’s pelagic vessel Faxi RE when we spoke to him at noon yesterday.
Fishing for herring has been good recently on grounds deep east of Iceland where Hjalti Einarsson reported that there were seven Icelandic vessels fishing.
‘The fishing grounds are roughly due east of Faskrudsfjordur. Our position now is 9°W, 64°37´N and we are 125 nautical miles from land, only 18 nautical miles from the Icelandic/Faroese line and there might be a problem if the herring spill over the line. We can catch herring in Faroese waters, but not mackerel as the Icelandic quota for mackerel in Faroese waters has been caught already,’ he said and commented that there is always a by-catch of mackerel and it will hardly be realistic to try and catch herring on the Faroese side of the line.
‘The amount of mackerel with the herring can vary enormously. The catch that Ingunn is landing now has very little mackerel in it. The herring is excellent quality. The samples show an average weight of 370 to 380 grammes with very little feed in the fish,’ Hjalti Einarsson said.
