NORWEGIAN SANDEEL FISHERY STILL GOING STRONG

Norwegian sandeel fishery still going strong. The sandeel fishery is still good, and a Faroe vessel delivered a record breaking catch this week with blue whiting, reports reports Norges Sildesalgslag (a Norwegian Fishermen’s Sales Organisation for Pelagic Fish).
A news update said:
“We had yet another decent week with sandeel fishery and a total of 18.100 MT was registered in the catch journal. The volume is distributed between 21 catches, ranging from 480 MT to 1.900 MT.
“The Norwegian vessels caught 10.600 MT at Vestbanken (North Sea) and 7.000 MT at the Inner Shoal. One Swedish vessel also reported a catch from EU waters.
“At the beginning of the week there were only a few vessels on the grounds as most of them had finished their preliminary quotas, but this changed on Wednesday when the Directorate of Fishery increased the preliminary TAC with 40.000 MT. The final results of the ongoing research survey and the complete TAC is expected when the survey ends this week. The temporarily increase of the quotas helps ensure a good continuity in the fishery both for the fishermen and the buyers and now we’re patiently awaiting the final results.
“So far there’s been caught 74.200 MT of sandeel this season which gives us a weekly average of 23.000 MT. And with 26 vessels on the grounds it shouldn’t take too long to fish the remaining quota, pending that the weather gods play their part.
“A total of 5.700 MT of blue whiting was registered in the catch journal this week, and two Faroe vessels were responsible for the majority of this volume, registering 4.600 MT in the journal. “Gitte Henning 1” reported astonishing 3.300 MT of blue whiting and herby succeed to the throne of the largest catch volume turned over by Sildelaget.
“The catches were caught south of the Faroe Islands, where there currently is great activity from the fleet consisting of about 40 vessels from different nationalities.
“Six Norwegian vessels caught about 1.300 MT on “Kanten” before they went back to the sandeel fishery.
“There’s also been caught about 1.700 MT of Norway Pout, 370 MT of argentine and 50 MT of horse mackerel from the same area.
“The cold weather and northerly winds put a restrain on the mackerel fishery this week, and we only received three registrations with a total of 6 MT of mackerel from the Rogaland area.”