CAPELIN STAY SHALLOW

‘We arrived here off Melrakkaslétta Yesterday morning but the capelin aren’t showing themselves. There’s plenty there, but the marks are small and the fish look to be dispersed and sticking to the shallows close to the land. This is the same situation as last season, but not what we have been seeing in past years,’ said Gudlaugur Jónsson, skipper of Ingunn AK, when we spoke to him.

Ingunn is just one of a group pelagic vessels searching for capelin.

‘This is our first trip this season with the purse seine. On Monday night we discharged 1000 tonnes of capelin taken in our pelagic trawl north and north-east of Langanes. There’s a lot of Norwegian boats here and they all had catches in their purse seines at the weekend, and one Icelandic purser had 300 tonnes in a shot on Monday,’ he said.

He commented that capelin fishing has been variable since the season opened. They have searched all the way as far west as the Kolbeinsey area and as far east as the northern part of the Eastfjords.

‘There was some decent fishing last week, but endless bad weather has made things difficult from the start of the season. There’s a northerly blow forecast for Wednesday and Thursday, and if the forecast adds up, then I doubt there’ll be weather for fishing.’

All three of HB Grandi’s pelagic vessels are at sea. Lundey NS arrived on fishing grounds on Monday night and Faxi RE had between 300 and 400 tonnes on board Yesterday.