There has been some strong fishing on mackerel through August, so HB Grandi’s pelagic vessels are already close to finishing their mackerel quotas. According to Vilhjálmur Vilhjálmsson at the company’s pelagic division, there remains only around 2000 tonnes to be caught.
He said that the fishing on mackerel fell away yesterday after some excellent fishing all this month and the last 24 hours have been hard going. A large fleet has been fishing on a small area off the east of Iceland over the last few days, both pelagic boats and factory vessels, with around 30 ships in that zone yesterday.
‘We now have around 2000 tonnes of our mackerel quota left and what happens after that still hasn’t been decided. We have flexibility to keep some quota back for next year, or we could also now take 10% of next year’s quota, which would give us an additional 1500 tonnes on top of this year’s catch,’ Vilhjálmur Vilhjálmsson said, commenting that the situation is very different to that of Atlanto-Scandian herring. The company has 12,000 tonnes of its herring quota still uncaught and hopes that this will be enough to keep the pelagic factory at Vopnafjördur running into October. As there is generally a mackerel by-catch with the herring, the pelagic vessels need to keep some mackerel quota back to cover that so as to make the most of the herring fishery.
Production from Faxi RE’s last landing was due to be complete at midnight and Lundey NS is steaming to Vopnafjördur with a mixed 250-tonne catch made up of 135 tonnes of herring and 105 tonnes of mackerel, plus 10 tonnes of blue whiting. Ingunn AK is on the fishing grounds and is expected to land at Vopnafjördur on Wednesday.
