Pelagic vessel Heimaey discharged 2000 tonnes of capelin at Thórshöfn and is now on its way to fishing grounds off Reykjanes.
The fish were caught around 20 nautical miles west of the Westmann Islands and it has been reported that there are huge volumes of capelin migrating westwards along the south coast in extremely dense shoals.
“This was easily the biggest shot I have ever had, between 2300 and 2400 tonnes. We would never have been able to pump this on board if the purse seine hadn’t been simply sitting on the bottom in about 16 metres. It’s a sand bottom there so there was no danger of doing any damage,” said skipper Ólafur Einarsson.
He added: “We had a 1500 tonne shot a few days before and we didn’t think we’d be able to do better than that. But the giant shot proved us wrong. Say what you like, but we can’t be anything other than optimistic about the growth and distribution of the capelin stock. It wouldn’t surprise me to see a healthy westerly migration of capelin quite soon and then there would be good reason to re-examine the quotas.”
The skipper made no secret of the fact that the purse seine is his preferred fishing method, and purse seining is a far more enjoyable way of fishing than using a pelagic trawl.
He concluded: “The deep purse seines are much bigger, up to 200 metres deep and 650 metres long. We don’t use our deep purse seine all that much, and it’s used most when we are fishing for capelin off the north coast and the Eastfjords in January and into February.”
Heimaey recently made headlines after taking a giant shot of capelin just off the Sandur fishing grounds between the Westmann Islands and the mainland.
