HB Grandi: Searching for herring off the west coast

HB Grandi’s pelagic vessels Venus and Víkingur were in the beginning of the week steaming to grounds off the west of Iceland to search for Icelandic summer-spawning herring in amounts worth fishing on in the next few days. According to Víkingur’s skipper Albert Sveinsson, a third vessel, Skinney-Thinganes pelagic vessel Ásgrímur Halldórsson, is also expected to show up after sailing from Reykjavík, reports www.megafishnet.com with reference to the company.

‘We are off the Ísafjörður Deep at the moment, and on Monday we were landing a small amount of blue whiting in Vopnafjörður. We searched for blue whiting off the south-east along with Venus, but there wasn’t much to be seen and we took only one tow each. Now we’re looking for Icelandic herring and Venus is here with us,’ he said.

For the last two years the Icelandic summer-spawning herring has been found mainly deep west of the Snæfellsnes peninsula and outside Faxaflói Bay. Only a few fishing vessels are there and news of fish is expected to remain scarce until the herring are located.

‘Things would be different if we were searching for capelin. We know there is capelin on the Hali grounds, as the groundfish trawlers are hauling their gear covered in capelin. But as far as the herring are concerned, it would make things easier if there were more of us here to search, but much of the fleet is still on Atlanto-Scandian herring off the east coast. They won’t come over this way until they have finished their quotas there,’ Albert Sveinsson said.