UPDATE ON NORWEGIAN PELAGIC FISHING SEASON

Update on Norwegian pelagic fishing season.

Norwegian pelagic sales group Norges Sildesalgslag has provided an update on pelagic fishing for fishing season week 34.

Kenneth Garvik of the group, writes:

Mackerel:

We had an average week for mackerel with 25,200 tonnes in the journal, which is significantly less than last week when we had a total of 55,200t. The best day of catching was Saturday with 5,900t.
There is currently a large participation in mackerel fishing and the week’s quantity is divided by 16,100t from purse seines, coastal 7,300t, SUK 1,400t and from trawls we have just under 4,000t.

One of the gratifying things about mackerel fishing is that there has been very good mackerel fishing for the smallest coastal fleet that operates close to the coast. There has clearly been a good influx of mackerel from the sea here. Fishing for this mackerel started at the end of July on Møre and the mackerel has then spread south along the coast. Where there have been good catches as far south as Sveio/Bømlo this week.

The registered quantity in this period for the smallest coastal fleet is over 11,000t.

From the Norwegian Sea, the effort has been great, with over 90 boats hunting mackerel last week. For parts of the week there has been wind on the field. The mackerel have been scattered and the catch has been rather slow, where there have mainly been both small casts and small trawl hauls. This is made visible by the fact that we only have four catches of over 400t this week.

If we look at the reported quantity of mackerel for August until now at the end of the month, there have been reported 90,000t. For the whole of August last year, we had 149,000t. We can hope that next week there will be a better collection of mackerel. Perhaps high pressure and fine weather can contribute to a bloom, so that the mackerel gather.

North Sea herring:

The foreign boats have started the herring season and eight different boats registered 7,900 tonnes last week. Most of the catches are taken close to the north of the Orkney Islands.
The sizes of the herring from this area are between 210 -235 grammes. From the Norwegian buyers who produce the herring, there are reports of ideal roe ripening, where you get super nice herring roe.

From a Swedish boat, ‘Astrid Marie’, which fished east of Peterhead, a herring of 188g is reported, where the roe maturation is much smaller, and not suitable for roe production.

Fishing for flour/oil:

There are few boats on ‘Kanten’ at the moment, and from five different boats we have just under 700t of pollock, 550t of coalfish, as well as a few tonnes of horse mackerel and stream herring.

From a Danish boat, ‘Ceton’, we got a sea sprat catch of 1,550t. It was fished in the southern part of the North Sea where several boats have fished well with sprat.

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