The course of the fisheries per week 34 - 2025

Mackerel:
We had an excellent mackerel week with 27,000 tons recorded. Many boats were active in this fishery, and in total, 130 boats fished for mackerel last week. The purse seine group clearly contributed the most, with 22,400 tons of the week's volume. From the other groups, we have 2,000 tons from coastal vessels, 1,900 tons from SUK (Purse seiners without license), and 700 tons from the trawl group.

Fishing was best in the first part of the week, with Wednesday being the best catch day at just under 7,000 tons. After northerly gale winds on Thursday, the fishing became more uneven with a tendency toward smaller catches. Catch sizes varied from 800 kg from a small coastal boat to “Rødholmen’s” 580 tons taken in two hauls on Saturday.

Rødholmen on the mackerel fishery this weekend. (Photo: Ytterstad Fiskeriselskap AS - sourced from Facebook)

The main fishing area has been in the Norwegian Sea, 180 to 200 nautical miles northwest of Ålesund. The mackerel in this area is unusually large, with average weights ranging from 460 g to a high of 570 g. The weighted average shows a size of 517 grams.

Along the coast, fishing has been modest. From boats fishing from Møre and further south to Rogaland, just under 700 tons have been caught. The average size of the mackerel here is around 340 grams.

In addition to a positive weekly volume of large mackerel, it is encouraging that nearly the entire volume was caught with purse seines. Only a few catches were taken with pelagic trawl.

Based on last week's fishing by Norwegian boats, as well as summer fishing by foreign vessels, it appears that food availability in the Norwegian Sea has been good. This gathers the mackerel, and there are reports of periodic heavy feeding in the fish.

Of this year’s quota of just over 150,000 tons, 54,000 tons have been caught, meaning that over one-third has already been fished by the end of August.

Continued strong participation in this fishery is expected. What remains to be seen is how long the mackerel will remain available in the Norwegian Sea and whether more fish will move toward the coast.

North Sea Herring:
A total of 4,000 tons of North Sea herring were reported last week. Of this volume, two Danish and one Northern Irish vessel caught 3,800 tons. “Astrid” had the largest catch here with 1,650 tons.

The average size of the herring is 220 grams. The Danish boats fished southeast of Shetland, while the last boat fished close to the island of Fair, south of Shetland.

For the Norwegian boats, one fished southeast of Egersund. Along the coast, we have three catches of larger herring over 300 grams from the smallest coastal boats.

Sprat:
From four foreign boats and one Norwegian, 6,700 tons of sprat were caught. Catches ranged from 420 tons to 1,465 tons, the latter being the largest catch by the Danish boat “Ceton”.

Fishing has mainly taken place on known sprat banks in the Dutch sector of the EU zone.

Norwegian boats have a quota of 10,000 tons, and vessels are allowed to depart for this fishery in a rotation system. So far, 7,200 tons of this quota have been caught.

Blue Whiting:
From two boats, 1,600 tons of blue whiting have been reported. These catches were taken in “Kanten,” from west of Bømlo to southwest of Egersund.

Bergen 25.08.2025
Kenneth Garvik
[email protected]