The first capelin of the year were landed at Neskaupstaður in eastern Iceland, with 540 tonnes of frozen capelin and 450 tonnes of fresh capelin for meal production delivered by Samherji’s pelagic factory vessel Vilhelm Thorsteinsson, which sailed as soon as the landing was complete.
The capelin fishing is taking place off the north-east of Iceland, and both HB Grandi and Síldarvinnslan RSW vessels have made landings.
HB Grandi’s pelagic vessel Venus docked in Vopnafjörður yesterday with a full payload of capelin on board, caught on the eastern edge of the Langanes Bank.
‘We sailed from Reykjavík on the 3rd January and staerted fishing off the Westfjords. We had one haul there and as that was all small capelin, we set off for Lanaganes,’ said skipper Guðlaugur Jónsson, optimistic that there is 2800 tonnes on board.
‘We were three days on the fishing grounds east of Langanes and even though there wasn’t much to be seen and the marks were nothing special, we managed to fill up in seven tows.’
Sister vessel Víkingur is on the capelin grounds off the east coast and is expected to dock in Vopnafjörður tonight.
According to Vilhelm Thorsteinsson’s skipper Birkir Hreinsson, their fish was caught in the trawl box off Langenes, and there is plenty of optimism for a successful capelin season this year.
Síldarvinnslan’s Beitir was alongside in Neskaupstaður to land 2200 tonnes of capelin yesterday and so was Greenlandic pelagic vessel Polar Amaroq, with 1000 tonnes in its tanks and 650 tonnes of frozen capelin.
Polar Amaroq’s skipper Geir Zoëga said that the season looks promising.
‘We’re going to see a lot of capelin,’ he said. ‘We were a week at sea and only two of those days fishing as three of them were spent searching for capelin in co-operation with the Marine Research Institute.’
Síldarvinnslan’s other pelagic vessel, Börkur is still at sea and skipper Halfdán Halfdánarson said that after a quiet night, yesterday saw some good fishing.
‘We have 1700 tonnes on board. We’re north of Langanes and at the limit of the trawl area. This is as far west as we can work with trawl gear,’ he said.
