Mackerel season starts

This summer’s mackerel season is underway with both of HB Grandi’s pelagic vessels on the fishing grounds already. Víkingur sailed from Akranes on Monday night and is now fishing off the south coast. Venus sailed on Wednesday afternoon and is now fishing south-west of the Westmann Islands. According to Víkingur’s skipper, Albert Sveinsson, the season has got off to a slow start, reports www.megafishnet.com with reference to the company.

‘We’re now forty nautical miles south-east of Vík. There were already a few boats there on mackerel when we arrived but things have been quiet so far. We took a short tow yesterday and had ten tonnes. We shot away this morning and now we’re pumping 120 tonnes out of the trawl. The fish is mixed with some herring and we’re shifting further west and hoping we’ll get cleaner mackerel there,’ he said when we spoke to him earlier this week.

He said that he hadn’t had the sizes from the haul when we spoke to him, but the other boats in the area had been declaring an average weight of 370 grammes.

The area where the mackerel season begins is variable from year to year and Albert Sveinsson said that in the last few years the HB Grandi vessels have generally begun on mackerel further east off Hornafjörður
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