HB Grandi: Venus back in vopnafjörður

HB Grandi’s pelagic vessel Venus came to Vopnafjörður on Monday with the first payload of blue whiting of the year, caught west of Ireland, making it an 800 nautical mile steam home. The return trip took approximately three days, reports www.megafishnet.com with reference to the company.

‘There’s fishing there at the moment. The best fishing is overnight, and during the day the blue whiting are dispersed to there isn’t much fishing then. The length of tow varies, depending on the catch rate and the weather. Conditions have been changeable and there was bad weather for the last 24 hours. The weather there was fine when we left, but there’s no way to tell how long it will last,’ said skipper Guðlaugur Jónsson while Venus was steaming. He estimated the catch was 2600 to 2700 tonnes for four days on the fishing grounds.

He said that there is a large number of vessels fishing for blue whiting.

‘We were lucky in that we didn’t have to wait to get started. Things are crowded down there, but we were able to start fishing as soon as we arrived on the fishing grounds on Monday last week,’ Guðlaugur Jónsson said.