The course of fisheries as per week 3/2019

Atlanto Scandic herring
A medium week for the Atlanto Scandic herring; 16 300 MT being registered. As the week before; the coastal fleet dominated the operations.
The activity has also during last week been performed in Kvænangen where the herring now has started leaving the fjord. When it comes to size; we see 170 g in the low end - and 260 g in the high end. Balanced average from Kvænangen;236 g.
The great variation in size is normal when the herring is on its move, - the smaller herring will stay behind. From “Nystrøm” it is reported catches with mostly smaller individuals only, being herring from the 2016 school.
In the area west of Lofoten, vessels, before the weekend, had no success, and northernly winds hampered the activity until Sunday morning. Then “Brennholm” got a catch of 580 MT some 50 n.m. northwest of Værøy Island. The herring had an average weight of 350 g.
On Sunday night, both seiners and trawler were in operation in this area, but the herring stays still fairly deep and is difficult to get.
Hopefully the herring will get more together higher up or at more shallow water enabling the vessels to get a better fishery before the herring on its migration will reach Møre in February.

Mackerel
A very good week for the mackerel with as much as 20 900 MT registered. This volume was taken by 18 different vessels from Norway (4), Denmark (3), Ireland (3) and Scotland/Shetland (8). A high demand for mackerel with good prices, especially in Norway, makes several vessels to choose the mackerel fishery this winter.
The mackerel is now moving south, and by early week the operations were carried out some 50 n.m. west of Shetland, - while later, the catches were taken some 100 n.m. southwest of the Shetlands.
All vessels, except “Frantsen Jr.», have been using their trawl.
The size of the mackerel varies from 355 – 412 g, with an average at 393 g.
Hopefully there will be more catching in the forthcoming week.

Horse mackerel
Five different vessels have over the last week been catching close to 90 MT of horse mackerel. These are catches at the west coast from Rogaland to Møre counties.
Following the “super full moon” on Monday morning, we do hope for a good week for the horse mackerel in the west country’s fjords.

North Sea herring
When it comes to North Sea herring, we have registered one catch of 380 MT in EU waters southeast of Shetland by the vessel “Magnarson”. The size was in the range of 130 g.
In addition, “Spjæringen Sr.” has got close to 40 MT off Sandefjord town. The size here was 140 g at the average.

Blue whiting
Two vessels have been in the Faroese zone looking for blue whiting, and one has got some blue whiting in the Norwegian zone combined with argentine in the catch. As a total, these three vessels got just 1 800 MT.
The fishing at the Faroes was good by the beginning of the week, while at the end, the daily catches were below 100 MT and the vessels gave in.
“Åkerøy” is now heading for the blue whiting fields west of Ireland in hope for better results here. This vessel was last year the very first to get a catch in this area on the 28^th of January.

Capelin at Iceland
On Iceland they finished their survey for capelin last week, and the outcome tells about some 200 000 MT of mature capelin. According to our sources, this is not enough to establish a quota and a new survey will be made by the end of this week.
Last year, Norway had a quota of some 74 000 MT, and the first catch was registered on the 22^nd of January.