The spell of bad weather that passed over Iceland last week has dropped away, and the fleet is back at sea but not finding it easy to find mackerel scattered by the storms.
Síldarvinnslan’s pelagic vessel Beitir instead switched to herring and has just landed a 440 tonne trip. According to skipper Tómas Kárason, this is fine quality Atlanto-Scandian herring.
‘We caught the fish on the inside of the Norðfjörður Deeps and on the way home we saw several healthy-looking herring marks close to land. There seems to be a good amount of herring in this area,’ he said, commenting that a storm can scatter the mackerel and this also happened during the last season.
It seems that the mackerel marks are already gaining strength, and there was some good fishing 60 miles off Norðfjarðarhorn in the last couple of days.
The difficulties in finding mackerel off the east of Iceland prompted Bjarni Ólafsson to search for them off the west coast and was yesterday already on its way to Neskaupstaður with 400 tonnes in its tanks, caught in two hauls in the Faxaflói area.
Síldarvinnslan’s shore-based production has been busy so far this summer and processor vessels have also landed 2500 tonnes of frozen mackerel products to the company’s cold store.
The latest landing was Vilhelm Thorsteinsson with 480 tonnes of frozen products and factory offcuts that were landed for fishmeal production.
According to cold store manager Heimir Ásgeirsson, Vilhelm Thorsteinsson has landed four times this summer and Hákon has made one one 625 tonne landing. Last week around 2000 tonnes of frozen products were shipped out onto a reefer vessel, with mackerel, herring and capelin products sent to overseas markets.
‘We are also constantly shipping frozen products out in containers via Reyðarfjörður, so there is plenty going on. It will make a big difference to us when the Norðfjörður tunnel is opened in September so the trucks will no longer have to take the Oddkarður road that rises 600 metres over sea level. The drivers can’t wait for the tunnel to open as it will make transport easier and shorten the journey, as well as being better for the trucks. The new tunnel will change everything for us,’ he said.
