News - page 8

The value of catch from Icelandic vessels in May 2018 was 11.6 billion ISK, an increase of 4.5% compared with May 2017. 

The overall catch of Icelandic vessels in July was 93,551 tonnes, a 27% increase from July 2017. Demersal catch was just over ...

HB Grandi’s freezer trawler Höfrungur III is now back fishing off the Westfords after breaking its trip for a half-landing in Reykjavík at the beginning of the week. According to skipper Haraldur Árnason, there has been good fishing all summer, although each trip is managed on the basis of which species are most economic to catch.

Pelagic vessel Venus is now in port at Vopnafjörður, having docked earlier this week with 600 tonnes of mackerel on board for production at HB Grandi’s pelagic processing plant. This is all good quality, large fish with an average size of 420-44 grammes.

‘Fishing has been really slow. We’ve been here for two days. Tows are long and the best we’ve had is a hundred tonnes,’ said Theódór Thórðarson, who is skipper of HB Grandi’s pelagic vessel Venus for this trip, when we spoke to him Yesterday afternoon.

‘Fishing has been good all through the autumn and weather conditions have been fine. There were two deep depressions that passed over the Westfjords during the last trip, but we escaped the worst of it. The first time we were on the south-west grounds and as the second one passed over, we were finishing the trip and were on the Straumnes Bank where things weren’t so rough,” said Heimir Guðbjörnsson, skipper of HB Grandi’s trawler Helga María.

‘We have one more mackerel trip ahead of us, but because of the weather outlook, we decided to go for herring instead. The forecast doesn’t look good for the next few days but we’ll see how it looks when we’ve finished landing,’ said Hjalti Einarsson, skipper of HB Grandi’s pelagic vessel Víkingur, scheduled to dock in Vopnafjörður this evening with 800 tonnes of herring.

‘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 Venus for this trip on blue whiting grounds south of the Faroe Islands ... 

Making sure all rules are complied with is an essential part of managing fisheries. 

There has been some very good fishing in the last few weeks south and west of the Reykjanes Peninsula. The fishing is primarily golden redfish and cod, plus there has been a spell of good saithe fishing. There are trawlers and smaller boats fishing from the Westmann Islands all the way west to Reykjanes and according to Eiríkur Jónsson, skipper of HB Grandi’s fresher trawler Sturlaugur H Bödvarsson, there has been a steady period of heavy fishing over these last few weeks ...

RETAIL giant Les Mousquetaires announced earlier today that its fishing fleet, Scapêche, will progressively phase out fishing for deep-sea species, as well as the sale of deep-sea fish in its supermarkets by 2025 ...

CONAPESCA Director: Aquaculture must be recognized, or its development will be slowed

According to the allocations made by the Directorate of Fisheries for the 2015/16 quota year, HB Grandi’s vessels have a total of 38,661 cod-equivalent tonnes. This is a lower figure than for the previous year when the company had 40,125 cod-equivalent tonnes and its quota share was 10.67%. 

~~‘It’s very quiet. A lot of boats went up north to search for mackerel and although there’s quite a fleet here, there doesn’t appear to be much fishing. We got here today and took one short haul for a hundred tonnes of mackerel,’ said Gudlaugur Jónsson, skipper of Venus.

‘We’re just hauling now after our final and third tow, and we expect to be in Vopnafjördur tonight. If everything works out, we should have around 500 tonnes,’ said Hjalti Einarsson, skipper of Faxi RE, which was in a position on the Hvalbakur grounds off the east coast when we spoke to him...

Venus NS is expected to dock this evening or tonight at Vopnafjördur with around 650 tonnes of mackerel on board, caught in four hauls south east of Hvalbak...

A fault in the main engine has kept Lundey NS away from joining the mackerel fishery for a few days. According to skipper Albert Sveinsson, the engine has just had a complete overhaul, but one of the pistons failed as the engine was started up...

Faxi RE arrived at Vopnafjördur Wednesday night with around 200 tonnes of mackerel on board, making this the first mackerel landing of the summer. According to skipper Hjalti Einarsson, the fish were caught in four hauls off the south-east coast...

Fresher trawler Helga María AK docked in Reykjavík Yesterday morning after a five and a half day trip with a catch of 160 tonnes on board. According to skipper Heimir Guðbjörnsson, the bulk of the catch is golden redfish and saithe, and only five tonnes are other species, such as ling and haddock...

Venus NS is now landing at Vopnafjördur after docking yesterday with 1800-1900 tonnes of blue whiting on board. This ends HB Grandi’s targeted fishery on blue whiting for the time being...