Roe season gets underway

The season for freezing capelin roe began this morning at HB Grandi's Akranes factory after Lundey NS docked yesterday with 1100 tonnes of capelin in its tanks. Fishing grounds are not far from the port and it took only two hours to steam to Akranes after the final shot, reports www.megafishnet.com with reference to HB Grandi.

It was also announced yesterday that following the February research cruise by research vessel Árni Fridriksson, there is good reason to increase the quota for the season. The Marine Research Institute's advice to the Minister is to increase the quota by 65,000 tonnes from 325,000t tonnes to 390,000 tonnes. The latest figures put the stock at 790,000 tonnes and the requirements are for 400,000 tonnes of the spawning stock to be left.

If the Minister follows the scientific advice, HB Grandi's share of the quota will increase by around 10,000 tonnes to a total of approximately 57,000 tonnes. Roughly half of this amount has already been caught, leaving some 28,000 tonnes to be fished.