Síldarvinnslan’s pelagic vessels have finished on Icelandic summer-spawning herring after a difficult season and the two have now switched to blue whiting, following the example of HB Grandi’s pelagic boats that are already fishing in Faroese waters.
Beitir docked with 700 tonnes of herring at Neskaupstaður before the weekend, closely followed by Börkur with 800 tonnes, with all of the two landings processed for human consumption at the Síldarvinnslan factory.
According to Börkur’s skipper Hjörvar Hjálmarsson, it has been a difficult season compared to previous years.
‘The herring don’t seem to have settled for the winter yet and the shoals aren’t properly formed,’ he said.
‘The fish are still dispersed and we certainly haven’t found the main body of herring. It’s a question of where they are and this herring stock is known for regularly changing its behaviour patterns, and it’s likely that this is happening now,’ he said, commenting that they caught their quota, but it took longer than usual.
‘Last year we were rarely longer than a day and a half at sea for a good catch. This time it took longer and it was harder work.’
Beitir and Börkur both sailed earlier this week for the Faroese EEZ where there has been some good fishing on blue whiting.
‘Fishing for blue whiting in the Faroese EEZ has been very good,’ said Róbert Axelsson, skipper for this trip on HB Grandi’s pelagic vessel Venus as his trip was coming to an end, and with sister ship Víkingur on its way to the same grounds.
‘This is our second trip on blue whiting. We had 2600 tonnes in the first trip and we expect this trip will be similar, but that’s our quota for the year finished. There has been steady good fishing since before we arrived here. We’ve been towing from five up to eleven hours and catches have been from 400 tonnes up to 600 tonnes in each haul,’ he said, adding that the blue whiting are evenly sized and in good condition.
‘There’s a big difference compared to fishing here last year. Then there was terrible weather the whole time but this year there has been a flat calm the whole time,’ he said.
