BLUE WHITING SLOWS DOWN

‘The fishing has changed over the last three days and it’s a lot slower than it has been. Hopefully it won’t last long and the fishing will pick up again soon,’ said Stefán Geir Jónsson, skipper for this trip on Lundey NS, when we spoke to him yesterday.

Lundey sailed from Vopnafjördur last Sunday after landing its previous trip of 1600 tonnes of blue whiting that had been caught over two days of fishing.

‘We started with our first haul around midday on Monday and two days later we have only taken two hauls. We have 500 tonnes so far. It’s the same story across the fleet. Skippers have been towing from twelve hours up to twenty-four with catches of between 200 and 400 tonnes for a tow,’ he said, commenting that the fish is moving north along the Mykines Bank across a wide fishing area.

‘Some have been towing as far north as the deeps off the Faroe Bank. Others have been towing southwards along the edge along a fishing area around 40 miles long. When we hauled last night we were 20 to 30 nautical miles west of Suduroy, which is the most southerly point of the Faroe Islands,’ Stefán Geir Jónsson said and added that the fishing is now all taking place in the separator zone where trawls have to be fitted with separation devices. These don’t make the fishing any easier and the skippers feel that the separators are easily damaged.

The other HB Grandi pelagic vessels are at sea. Ingunn AK is also in the Faroese zone and Faxi RE is steaming to fishing grounds.

Lundey NS