Norwegian fishing activities, week 36, 2010
Mackerel:
Another good week showing a total catch of 48 200 tonnes bringing the total fishery to 134 900 tonnes this fall, reports www.megafishnet.com with reference to Norges Sildesalgslag. This is unusually much for the this early in September ( the 13th) After record catches and subsequent price pressure the week was off to a slow start with only 1 800 tonnes. But already on Tuesday the mackerel started congregating in bigger schools and Sildealget had over 10 000 tonnes reported caught that day.Later in the week more vessels went searching for bigger size mackerel in the EU zone. Already Wednesday we had catches from east of Shetland on 60 degree north and from 63 degree north on the border of the Faroe Ilands zone. Thursday and Friday we had daily total catches of about 6 000 tonnes .
This past weekend we had 11 000 tonnes saturday and 9 600 tonnes sundaySize and price have been variable during the week. In the beginning we mainly saw mackerel under 400 grams on the average. The catches in the EU zone and later inside the Norwegian zone then showed some bigger sizes. The biggest average for a vessel was 490 grams and the average for the week ended on 415 grams. The prices have varied a lot due to days with lots of fish being caught.
The highest price on the auction netted NOK 10,49, the lowest NOK 5,15. The average price for the week was Nok 7,64.Total catches so far this year is 134 900 tonnes. At the same time last year we only had 42 000 tonnes in total catches.
So the restquota of 70 000 tonnes from last year is now already been caught. Inside the Norwegian zone we have total catches of 11 400 tonnes, which means another 20 000 tonnes are needed to be caught there.
Norwegian Spring Herring:
This fishery happened mainly along the coast this week and about 1 800 tonnes have been reported. The majority, about 1 100 tonnes, have been delivered in Lofoten for production for consumption and about 300 tonnes were caught in Møre for fishmeal production. One russian vessel has landed 400 tonnes frozen herring from the Norwegian Sea.
There has been little activities from norwegian vessels in the Norwegian Sea. "Havdrøn" has been searching some and Sunday night they reported some findings of herring. We expect that more vessels will finish off their mackerel quota in the coming week and for them herring fishery will be next.
Pout/ Blue Whitting:
From the North Sea only small amounts went for fishmeal/fishoil production. 1 200 tonnes of pout and 800 tonnes of blue whitting
Coastal sprat:
Little activity in the Hardanger fjords. Only 67 tonnes caught in the beginning of the week. The vessel " Hosøybuen" will now explore a little in Sognefjorden to see if there is cause to open sprat fishery there.