HB Grandi: Redfish caught, now for cod

‘Catch rates have been fine right up until today. Fishing is very slow now. We’re half way through the trip and have already taken the redfish we’re allowed for production ashore and now we can concentrate on cod. I’m confident we won’t have any problems, and then we’re due in Reykjavík on Monday,’ said Friðleifur Einarsson, skipper of HB Grandi’s fresher trawler Ásbjörn, reports www.megafishnet.com with reference to the company.

 

When we spoke to him they were fishing on the bank outside the Hali Grounds off the Westfjords. 

‘Just the same as this time, we started right after the strike off the south coast. We had redfish and saithe that time but this time there was only redfish to be had. Then we moved northwards to the Westfjords grounds. Now we started on the Cat Ridge or the Látragrunn shallows, about twenty miles north of the Víkuráll Gully, and did well on redfish. Then we came further north and the fishing for cod has gone well, apart from us having a bad day today,’ Leifur said, adding that there have been very few reports of any saithe fishing off the Westfjords over the last week. The fresher trawlers don’t have to worry about haddock, as the freezer trawlers take that.

Now it is not long before Ásbjörn will be taken out of service and replaced with the new Engey that is being built in Turkey. Leifur said that he expects the delivery to take place around the middle of next month, and there are hopes that the newest Icelandic fresher trawler will arrive in Iceland before New Year. There is a 4000 nautical mile delivery trip ahead of them, which is expected to take two weeks
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