August has been a great month for the two fresher trawlers operated by Icelandic company Síldarvinnslan’s subsidiary Bergur-Huginn. The pair have between them landed 829 tonnes of fish during August and each has landed a record-breaking 5000 tonnes of fish this quota year.
“This has been an exceptionally good year for Vestmannaey and Bergey, and August has been a fantastic month, especially for haddock,” said Vestmannaey’s skipper Birgir Thór Sverrisson, commenting that after a break at the beginning of the month, they began hunting for haddock off Reykjanes and then closer to the Westmann Islands.
“In the last trip in August we started on haddock off the Islands and then shifted eastwards for cod. This trip was about picking up what was left of quotas for individual species before the end of the quota year, including plaice, catfish, ling, and others,” he said.
“Fishing for haddock has been fantastic this summer but there aren’t many who put the effort into this. We had to spend time looking for haddock, but once we had found them, fishing was very good.”
Over the 2017-2018 quota year Vestmannaey and Bergey have each landed 1900 tonnes of haddock.
“Síldarvinnslan’s trawlers have altogether caught 4600 tonnes of haddock, out of the overall quota of 43,000 tonnes. We have also caught a lot of cod, compared to what we have been used to,” he said.
Birgir Thór Sverrisson commented that the two trawlers don’t fish all that hard and there are good breaks for the crews between trips.
“Vestmannaey and Bergey are the smallest size of trawler and we wouldn’t be able to fish like this without good crews. There are twelve on each and often tens of tonnes of fish that need to be handled every day. We couldn’t do that without top crews.”
