The course of the fisheries per week 13 - 2025

The past week has seen little activity at sea with few reported catches. Here are the reported catches:

• Blue whiting: 3,940 tons from two boats.
• Horse mackerel: 27 tons from three boats.

Therefore, we take this opportunity to look back at how the fishing has been so far this year.

NVG Herring

The year started with good herring fishing in the north, including in Kvænangen. In week 8, we reported that the herring was unusually far north for the end of February, creating excitement about where the main spawning area would be this year.

The Institute of Marine Research conducted a spawning survey from February 15 to March 3, which showed that most of the herring was found outside Lofoten and Vesterålen – similar to last year. There is still little herring to be found in the traditional spawning grounds south of Røstbanken.

Read more about the spawning survey here.

The last herring catch was registered in week 10, and there are now 150,900 tons left for the autumn herring fishery.

Blue Whiting

Blue whiting fishing started well already in week 4, first in the EU zone outside Ireland, where fishermen reported decent catches. Later, fishing also started in international waters where there was very good fishing despite challenging weather conditions, and some periods with long tows with poor results.

Week 9 stood out with almost 80,000 tons of blue whiting reported, and over half of this year's quota of 406,000 tons was then fished. As of now, 302,700 tons of blue whiting have been caught, and approximately 85,700 tons of the quota remain. Fishing is now finished in the EU zone, and we expect some fishing in a couple of weeks in the Faroese zone.

North Sea Herring

Some boats fished North Sea herring in the Norwegian zone during weeks 4–5, but this season is expected to start in earnest at the end of May. The quota for Norwegian vessels this year is 114,800 tons.

Mackerel

There has been some mackerel fishing west of Shetland this winter. The mackerel has been of good quality, demand has been high, and prices have been good.

We now look forward to the coastal mackerel fishery starting in the north at the beginning of June, and otherwise along the coast before the main season begins in August. Last year, this started already in week 31, three weeks earlier than usual, with good sizes of mackerel. Hopefully, this will be the case this year as well.