Icelandic summer-spawning herring fishery doing well - but weather hampers capelin fishing

Faxi RE, owners HB Grandi, Iceland, was due to dock in Vopnafjördur at 1900 tonight with 700 tonnes of herring on board, all caught in a single shot in Breidafjördur. This is Faxi's second trip on herring after the domestic summer-spawning herring fishery opened. The first trip was also a 700 tonnes, but taken in two shots, according to HB Grandi.

‘We were fishing inside Hrútey, just off the farm at Bjarnarhöfn, which is where we finished the first trip when we were also fishing off Kidey,' said skipper Albert Sveinsson when we spoke to him with Faxi steaming past Raudanúpur.

Faxi's herring season started about a week ago and production started at HB Grandi's pelagic factory in Vopnafjördur last Sunday. As soon as the catch had been discharged, Faxi departed for the next trip last Monday evening. According to Albert Sveinsson, weather has been excellent this morning on the herring grounds close to shore and fishing has gone well.

‘It's very difficult to work how much fish there is on those grounds where we have been mostly fishing. The fish can find their way in among islands and skerries where it's too shallow for us to follow,' he said, adding that the herring are good quality. The average weight according to their samples is 326 grammes, compared to 340 gramme sample weight from the previous trip.

Ingunn AK and Lundey NS both sailed to search for capelin last Friday night and began their search off the Westfjords where they found only small capelin. The search then took them further east towards the Kolbeinsey Ridge, but without any results. There is bad weather in the Denmark Strait at the moment, and according to Vilhjálmur Vilhjálmsson, head of department at HB Grandi's pelagic division, Lundey and Ingunn are currently dodging in bad weather around 120 nautical miles NNA of Hornbjarg. There are signs of capelin in the area, but they need to wait for the weather to improve before starting fishing.