News - page 9

Wetfish trawler Sturlaugur H Bödvarsson docked in Reykjavík Sunday morning with 120 tonnes of fish after only two and a half days on the fishing grounds. The plan had been to land today, but good fishing meant that the trip was shortened by two days...

Factory trawler Therney RE is due to dock in Reykjavík tomorrow. The ship is now steaming home after a successful trip in Norwegian waters. The catch is estimated at 1275 tonnes of raw fish with value of ISK 506 million...

‘We’re hoping for the best. At least the capelin are showing up in the shallows off the east coast where we have seen them before. Going by the catches off Stokksnes and south of Hornafjördur over the last few days, it looks like the capelin season is properly underway. A lot of things have taken us by surprise this winter, not least the size of the capelin off the east coast. It’s not far off being twice the size of the capelin we caught in the north,’ said Arnthór Hjörleifsson, skipper of Lundey NS...

Ingunn AK docked in its home port of Akranes today with an estimated 1900 tonnes of capelin on board. The catch was taken in seven shots with a deep seine on the Skagagrunn grounds off Húnaflói Bay, the same area that has seen the heaviest capelin fishing over the last few days...

Lundey NS docked at Akranes wednesday morning with 1500 tonnes of capelin on board. This is Lundey’s second landing this season at Akranes and factory manager Gudmundur Hannesson said that the outlook is for a good season...

‘The weather has been foul the whole time, not least during the steam home. We got through the storm yesterday that the Norwegians named Ole, and we had wind speeds of 40 m/sec for four hours. When the wind dropped away to 25 m/sec, the sea started to build up. Now we’re steaming into the wind instead of setting a direct course for home,’ said Ægir Franzson, skipper of Therney RE when we spoke to him this evening...

Lundey NS was scheduled to dock at Akranes this afternoon with full tanks of capelin, the first landing of the season to Akranes. The fish were caught in three shots east of the Skagagrunn grounds...

‘We arrived here off Melrakkaslétta Yesterday morning but the capelin aren’t showing themselves. There’s plenty there, but the marks are small and the fish look to be dispersed and sticking to the shallows close to the land. This is the same situation as last season, but not what we have been seeing in past years,’ said Gudlaugur Jónsson, skipper of Ingunn AK, when we spoke to him...

Lundey NS was due to dock at Vopnafjördur earlier today with around 1000 tonnes of capelin on board. According to skipper Arnthór Hjörleifsson, fishing has been slow since they sailed in the New year, but picked up this last weekend...

Things have been quiet on the fishing grounds north of Iceland since the pelagic fleet started its search for capelin in the New Year. According to Albert Sveinsson, skipper of Faxi RE, the capelin are dispersed and marks are loose. Faxi is now fishing 90 nautical miles north of Raudinúpur, and by yesterday evening had 390 tonnes on board after three hauls...

The HB Grandi fleet last year landed 152,500 tonnes of fish with a value of approximately ISK15.20 billion. This represents a reduction compared to the previous year when the company fleet landed 188,200 tonnes worth ISK16.80 billion...

Therney RE is now steaming back to Icelandic waters after a successful trip in the Russian zone of the Barents Sea. According to chief mate Sigurgeir Jóhannsson, catches have been very good with an estimated 655 tonnes of live weight fish in their two weeks there...

Early Yesterday  morning the staff at HB Grandi’s Vopnafjördur factory finished processing the last of the herring landed by Faxi RE, bringing to an end a short but busy season that started at the beginning of October on Icelandic summer-spawning herring...

Faxi RE docked at Vopnafjördur late last night after a long steam from western Iceland. The route taken was the longer option, passing south of Iceland due to unusually bad weather conditions off the north coast over the last few days, and skipper Albert Sveinsson said that they had storm-force conditions the whole way. The wind speed indicator topped 51m/sec at one point, although sea conditions were not bad...

Herring has a reputation as a tricky customer, as Arnthór Hjörleifsson, skipper of Lundey NS, would agree. When Lundey arrived on fishing grounds yesterday evening there were strong herring marks to be seen deep west of Snæfellsnes. Two shot tows yielded 460 tonnes of fish, but today there was nothing to be seen...

‘We have between 900 and 1000 tonnes of herring on board that we had in four hauls south of the Látragrunn Shallows, deep west of Snæfellsnes,’ said Róbert Axelsson, chief mate on board Ingunn AK when we spoke to him earlier today. Ingunn was then steaming to Vopnafjördur with the first of this season’s Icelandic summer-spawning herring from the fishery that began last week...

Freezer trawler Höfrungur III AK docked in Akureyri late last night, as the ship is there for dry-docking. The vessel docked in Reykjavík last Monday with 9500 cartons in its fishroom, after having completed a half-landing in Reykjavík ten days earlier, making the trip’s total 12,300 cartons...

The HB Grandi fleet’s herring and mackerel catches this summer total 33,400 tonnes. This is a small increase compared to last summer’s catches when the fleet landed 32,400 tonnes...

One of HB Grandi’s pelagic vessels, Faxi RE, was yesterday still fishing herring deep off the east of Iceland. Lundey NS was then steaming home, having finished its last trip of the season and Ingunn AK had already finished its season, docking at Vopnafjördur on Monday with 900 tonnes on board that has now been pumped ashore...

‘The trip started slowly and it seems that the herring are moving out of the shallow. As soon as we shifted into deeper water the fishing improved and there was some good fishing last night,’ said Stefán Geir Jónsson, who is skippering Lundey NS for this trip, when he arrived  in Vopnafjördur this morning. He estimated a catch of around 560 tonnes, of which 100 tonnes is mackerel caught the night before last.