SLOW FISHING BUT GOOD QUALITY

Fresher trawler Sturlaugur H Bödvarsson docked today after a mackerel trip south of Reykjanes, landing 45 tonnes after two days at sea. According to this trip’s skipper, Magnús Kristjánsson, fishing was fairly slow but the mackerel is of both good size and quality.

‘We started fishing on Wednesday night south of Reykjanes. There has been quite a fleet fishing there on mackerel with some trawlers, part of the pelagic fleet and most of the processing vessels,’ he said, commenting that catches have varied from vessel to vessel, and the variations appears to be largely down to the size of the gear.

‘We have a small pelagic trawl with a 20 fathom headline and most of the bigger boats have a trawl that’s twice that size or bigger. 40 to 50 fathom headlines are nothing unusual for the bigger catchers,’ Magnús Kristjánsson said, adding that the mackerel are mainly caught from the surface and down to around 20 fathoms. These are top quality, good sized fish, and he said that much of their catch is 600 gramme fish. The fish are trucked for processing to HB Grandi’s factory at Vopnafjördur. Sturlaugur H Bödvarsson was due to sail again at 1800 today.