Fishing has been steady on blue whiting south of the Faroe Islands, with 12-15 hour tows and the fish are expected to shift as they begin to migrate northwards.
‘The fishing is good and there’s nothing to complain about. We’ve mostly managed to haul and shoot twice a day and tow for 12 to 15 hours at a time. It’s generally good fish that we have been catching, although there’s a mix of small fish with it sometimes,’ said Róbert Axelsson, who is skipper of HB Grandi’s pelagic vessel Venus for this trip, fishing for blue whiting south of the Faroe Islands. Venus docked in Vopnafjörður yesterday with 2300 tonnes of blue whiting in its tanks after four days on the fishing grounds.
He said that the blue whiting can be expected to show up further north in the Faroese zone in much the same areas as last year, although nothing is certain.
‘Sometimes the migration passes northwards but further to the east, and sometimes more westerly and closer to our waters. I’d be happy if the blue whiting were to move further west, as out 400 mile return trip this time took 30 hours,‘ he said, commenting that there is little variation in the fishing.
‘It looks like the fish passing into the trawl belly slows down a little around midnight and again early in the morning, otherwise it’s much the same all through the day,’ Róbert Axelsson said.
