Herring fishery coming to an end
Fishing on herring has been good this last week and HB Grandi's herring quota is being used up rapidly. Lundey NS is now on its last herring trip, while Ingunn AK and Faxi RE are in Vopnafjordur. There was 2400 tonnes of herring quota left before Lundey sailed, leaving around 800 tonnes for each ship, reports www.megafishnet.com with reference to HB Grandi's press release from 15, October, 2010.
According to Vilhjálmur Vilhjalmsson, head of HB Grandi's pelagic division, the company has 1350 tonnes of mackerel quota left, but this is unlikely to be caught before the herring season ends.
Lundey's last landing was 950 tonnes discharged at the beginning of the week. At midday on Thursday, 800 tonnes had been landed from Faxi and Ingunn is next to have its catch of around 1000 tonnes pumped ashore after being at the quayside since Tuesday. According to skipper Gudlaugur Jonsson, there is plenty of herring in their fishing areas.
‘The herring are moving fast eastwards and into the Faroese zone. We started the last trip fishing opposite Faxi and finished up fishing on our own, and did pretty well. We followed the herring all the way from the Reydarfjordur Deeps out to the Faroese line,' he said, adding that for the last few weeks the pelagic vessels have been pair trawling and only now have conditions changed to make single trawling an option. But the herring's behaviour has not changed, lying deep during daylight and rising towards the surface towards dusk. Gudlaugur Jonsson said that his catches had been taken at depths of 200 fathoms. It has been a surprise how late the herring have been in shifting out of Icelandic waters, as last year the HB Grandi vessels had all finished their herring fishing by the end of September.
As previously mentioned, the pelagic vessels have 1350 tonnes left of their mackerel quota. The mackerel allocation has been increased twice since the fishing slowed down in September, so HB Grandi's vessels have only 450 tonnes remaining of their original mackerel quota.