HB Grandi: Slow fishing on blue whiting in the herring loophole

‘Fishing has been really slow. We’ve been here for two days. Tows are long and the best we’ve had is a hundred tonnes,’ said Theódór Thórðarson, who is skipper of HB Grandi’s pelagic vessel Venus for this trip, when we spoke to him Yesterday afternoon.

Venus was among the first Icelandic vessels in the area. Sigurður were there but Guðrún Þorkelsdóttir was already on her way home after a few days on the fishing grounds. Since then the number of vessels has increased, mainly with Russian factory trawlers. Vikingur is also in the same area.

‘If nothing changes, then we won’t be here long as there’s not a much to be had. We hardly even see any dust on the sounder screens. We normally only see blue whiting as tiny dots on the screen.’

The time for the mackerel season preparations is approaching and Theódór Thórðarson said that he hopes they won’t be far into July by the time the season starts.

‘It’s most likely the fishing will start off the south-east coast and the area around Hvalbakur. Albert on Víkingur was aware of some mackerel around there when they were steaming out here, and we hope that’s a good indicator for this summer’s fishing,’ he said.