BAD WEATHER FOR NORWEGIAN MACKEREL BOATS

Bad weather for Norwegian mackerel boats. The Norwegian fleet has just had the best week of the autumn mackerel season with 13,700 tonnes, with a total of 117 different boats catching mackerel last week. The catches varied from 1 tonne as the lowest to 310 tonnes as the largest catch.

For the largest boats that fish mackerel in the Norwegian Sea, the week has been characterised by low pressure activity with lots of wind, with only a few hours of proper fishing conditions. In the first part of the week, much of the mackerel was taken by trawl, while at the end of the week most catches were taken with seine.

At the weekend, Faroese boats also arrived in the Norwegian part of the Norwegian Sea to fish for mackerel and made small catches.

After the three-party agreement was concluded, up to 12 boats can fish in the Norwegian zone at the same time.

In the main, there have been large mackerel caught. The average weights are in the range of 360 – 585 grams, with the weighted average for the whole week being a 473 grams.

On the coast from Møre and further south to Vestland, – and the Rogaland coast, the smallest boats have had the same challenges with a lot of wind and proper autumn weather. They have contributed 530 t last week, where the sizes are in the range from 200 g to 370 g. The largest sizes on the coast are fished at Møre.

Good participation in the mackerel fishery is still expected in the coming weeks. A glance at the quota picture shows that 45,000 t of the annual quota of 237,907 t have been fished.

Only a few boats fished North Sea herring and from 15 boats there was 5,300 tonnes in caught. Of this quantity, four foreign boats have fished a total of 4,200 t from various herring fields in British waters.

Herring from here have an average weight of 170 to 265 grammes, and are sold to Norwegian consumer buyers.

For the Norwegian boats, there is a consumption catch of around 300 t fished south-east of Shetland. The remaining catches from the North Sea are converted to fishmeal.

Photo credit: Norges Sildesalgslag/Åge Røttingen

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