Good fishing all summer

HB Grandi’s freezer trawler Höfrungur III is now back fishing off the Westfords after breaking its trip for a half-landing in Reykjavík at the beginning of the week. According to skipper Haraldur Árnason, there has been good fishing all summer, although each trip is managed on the basis of which species are most economic to catch.

‘We had 420 tonnes green weight of fish before the half-landing. Most of it was haddock, but we had some golden redfish and cod as well,’ he said.

The trip began on the 13th of July and Höfrungur III went straight to the Látragrunn grounds.

‘We were twelve days on haddock on the Látragrunn. Fishing was reasonably good. There was a little cod as by-catch to start with, but otherwise it was clean haddock. From the Látragrunn we went north to the Hali grounds and then the Strandagrunn, where it was mostly redfish and cod. We tried around what we call the Night Kiosk, and then we tried for some Greenland halibut at the Geirastaðir area,’ he said, commenting that the fishing for Greenland halibut was slow.

‘I usually like to go right round the country, if that doesn’t clash with anything else that we’re needed for. Normally these trips are focused on Greenland halibut, but now it looks like the netters have had the best of it on the usual trawl grounds off the north and east coasts. The nets are laid at 250 to 300 fathoms, or deeper, and that means that there isn’t room for us there.’

Haraldur Árnason commented that he plans to keep to the haddock grounds off the Westfjords, and added that much of the fleet is waiting for the haddock box off the Strands coast to open for fishing on the 16th of August.