This year’s mackerel have been difficult to deal with where the Icelandic pelagic has been fishing in international waters.
While catches have been slow and with long distances to steam to land, Síldarvinnslan’s fleet has been working a rota, with all three vessels’ catches pumped on board one, which then heads home to land.
Börkur made the most recent landing in Neskaupstaður with around 1100 tonnes. According to production manager Jón Gunnar Sigurjónsson, the fish are large sizes and with relatively little feed in them, and production has been going well.
Fishing has improved in the last few days with hauls of 100-150 tonnes and catches have been pumped on board Bjarni Ólafsson which is on its way to land 960 tonnes.
“There has been a lot of searching and finally we found a patch that gave us a 240 tonne haul. The mackerel is on its way. There’s no heavy fishing, but it’s steady,” said Bjarni Ólafsson’s chief mate Thorkell Pétursson.
“The mackerel we have been getting is smaller than before. It’s around 450 grammes, and earlier we were catching 500 gramme fish. When the fishing started on this patch the fleet gathered there and there’s a lot of ships there now – mostly Russian and some from Greenland.”
According to Beitir’s skipper Sigurður Valgeir Jóhannesson, fishing started after the fleet had been searching for two days.
“We pumped our fish on board Bjarni Ólafsson yesterday and then we pumped 150 tonnes on board. We’re the next one in the queue to land,” he said.
“The mackerel aren’t easy to handle. They appear and then they vanish, and it can be a challenge to cope with them. This looks to be the only area in the Loophole where there’s fish to be had, so all the trawlers are heading this way and there’s plenty of traffic here.”
