Good fishing on deep redfish

“We have kept mostly to the deep grounds all this trip and have been searching mainly for deep redfish. There’s a strong demand for this at the moment,” said Ævar Jóhannesson, skipper of HB Grandi’s freezer trawler Örfirisey.

“Fishing has been good and now we’re expecting to be in port in Reykjavík next Monday,” he added.

Örfirisey sailed shortly after the seamen’s strike ended a month ago and has docked once in that time to make a half-landing and he said that he expects the trip’s total green weight of fish to reach 800 tonnes before  they sail for home.

“We started the trip on the Eldey Bank soon after the capelin had passed over and that’s where we had some large, good quality cod. After that we moved on to the Skerja Deeps where we started looking for deep redfish. Catches were good and as well as the redfish, we were seeing silver smelt and some saithe,” Ævar Jóhannesson said, with Örfirisey in a position deep west of Látrabjarg.

“The weather picked up down south, so we shifted northwards. As before, we’re still looking out for deep redfish and silver smelt, as well as some Greenland halibut. The fishing for Greenland halibut could have been better, and it looks as if either the migration or the feed have been wanting. We expected more in places such as the Hampidjan Square, but it didn’t work out. There’s a similar situation with fishing for Greenland halibut over a wider area. Höfrungur III started in the Seyðisfjörður Deeps after the strike and did well for the first few hauls. The things slowed down and I gather from the skippers of other trawlers that there isn’t much Greenland halibut to be had off the east coast. Then there’s the north edge, but that's where conditions have been bad for a while.”

Ævar Jóhannesson said that they can’t complain about the weather.

“We’ve been mostly on southern grounds and we haven’t lost a single day this trip. That’s pretty rare in February and March,” he said.