Trawlers fishing well on deep sea redfish
HB Grandi's Venus HF started fishing redfish at the beginning of May.
The four HB Grandi’s factory trawlers that have been fishing on deep sea redfish for the past few weeks have reported good catches and that all four vessels have been able to maintain close to full production of 40-50 tonnes of raw fish per day.
According to trawler fleet assisting manager Birkir Hrannar Hjálmarsson, the trawlers started on the deep sea redfish earlier this year than in 2009 and 2008 due to lower redfish and cod quotas in home waters than in the past.
Venus HF was the first to start on redfish this year at the beginning of May and was followed by Therney RE. Helga María AK and Örfirisey RE started fishing a few days later.
Iceland's HB Grandi has a total quota of 4,600 tonnes of deep sea redfish this year.
"Some of the skippers say that there is a lot more redfish on the Reykjanes Ridge this year than they have seen for several years. The smaller redfish is showing up closer to the surface, and this is something that was noticed last year. This is good news as the smaller grades of redfish appeared to have disappeared completely for a while,” Hjálmarsson said.
Hjálmarsson commented that the redfish shoal that they have been fishing on has been around the 200-mile EEZ limit, sometimes just inside the line, but mostly either straddling the limit or just outside.
Catches have generally been good. At the most, there have been upwards of 50 trawlers fishing on a fairly small area close to the Icelandic 200-mile limit.
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