Brim’s fresher trawler Akurey is fishing west of Iceland, towing on the bank to the west of the Hali grounds. The aim is to land as much cod as possible this trip, but according to skipper Eiríkur Jónsson, this isn’t going as well as he would like and fishing for cod is very slow at the moment.
Akurey docked in Grundarfjörður before the weekend and sailed again once the catch had been offloaded.
‘It wasn’t a lot, 70 to 80 tonnes, but that was after just three days’ fishing. When trips are short and we’re not landing large amounts, then it’s good to have the option of offloading in Grundarfjörður when we’re fishing on Westfjords grounds. This saves us 12 to 14 hours’ steaming back and forth to land in Reykjavík,’ he said.
He added that cod fishing has been slow and there’s a lot of searching going on.
‘We’ve been mainly on the bank, and also in the Djúpáll Gully, the Hali grounds and as far east as the Thveráll Gully. Some trawlers have gone all the way to the Thverálshorn grounds and the only reports I’ve heard from those areas are that there was a showing of fish one night and then it was all over. Redfish isn’t a problem and I hear that there’s some heavy fishing for redfish on the bank at the moment,’ Eiríkur Jónsson said, adding that the only reports of good fishing for cod come from east coast grounds.
‘I hear that the Síldarvinnslan and Samherji trawlers and maybe some boats from Hornafjörður have been fishing reasonably well on cod somewhere off the east,’ he said.
