September catch and outlook for October in herring and blue whiting fisheries

In October 2006 the Norwegian spring spawning herring has remained one of the main objects of the Russian fishery in the Norwegian Sea with the bulk of the operators to exhaust the quotas in the Norwegian EEZ during the month.

With herring quotas taken up, the Russian boats will be switching to blue whiting fishery in the southern part of the international waters of the Norwegian Sea.

In September 2006 the Russian herring catch in the Norwegian Sea amounted to about 52,000 metric tons, according to provisional figures. This marks a rise of ca. 3000 tonnes on the same period in 2005.

The herring expedition numbered at least 40 trawlers with 70% from Murmansk-led North Basin and the rest from Kaliningrad.

The catch rates ranged within 50-70 tonnes per boat per day with modernized supertrawlers such as RTMKS M-0002 «Admiral Shabalin», M-0004 «Admiral Starikov» owned by OAO «MTF» plc, BATM  M-0016 «Morskoi Priboy» and M-0225 «Kapitan Buga» owned by OOO «Robinson»  hauling as much as 170-200 tonnes per day.

The by-catch of blue whiting amounted to 10-15 %. According to skipper reports, the share of herring 300+ ranged within 40-60% while the larger fish mostly occurred in the hauls in the western part of the Norwegian EEZ.

Blue whiting

According to provisional figures, the Russian blue whiting harvest in September amounted to ca. 9000 tonnes, approximately on a par with September 2005.

The group of 8-15 boats operated mainly in the open part of the Norwegian Sea and in the southwest of Bear Island-Spitsbergen Area.

The daily catch rates ranged within 40-50 tonnes per boat per day while the sizes averaged at about 100 g.

Sometimes in the open part there was a considerable by-catch of redfish, which prevailed in some hauls at a rate of 15-20 tonnes per boat per day.