The course of the fisheries as per week 47/2019

Spring-Spawning Herring
As expected, we experienced a decline in landed volume this week and a total of 27.500 MT of herring was registered in the catch journal.

However, catches from the smaller costal fleet, who deliver to transport vessels, increased from 3.800 MT last week to 6.300 MT this week. The catches were distributed between 133 different registrations, of which some were penned-in and others were pumped directly from the net to the transport vessel.

A total of 10 different transport vessels, doing 13 trips in total, have been used to transport the catches to the plants.

Purse seiners have caught 9.200 MT, the larger costal vessels have caught 9.300 MT and the trawlers have caught 2.000 MT of herring. A Russian trawler caught 500 MT for temporary storage. Of the total volume of 17.100 the sizes of the herring for consumption ranges from 240-291 grams.

In other words, the activity in Kvænangen has been good and the weather conditions have been ideal.

As the past couple of weeks, the fishery has taken place in two different areas, Kvænangen and in international water in the Norwegian Sea. It has been caught 10.400 MT of large herring from international waters, sizes ranging from 350-384 grams.

For the following weeks we are expecting a further decline in this fishery.


North Sea Herring
A total of 500 MT of North Sea herring has been caught this week distributed between five vessels. Everything apart from 20 MT has been caught in EU waters Southeast of Shetland.

The vessels report of poor gathering of the herring and periods of bad weather.

Some vessels still have quotas left, so we are expecting some activity the following week.


Horse Mackerel
Five vessels have caught a total of 150 MT of horse mackerel in the fjords on the Westcoast of Norway. The size of the fish ranges from 460-570 grams.


Coastal and Ocean Sprat
A total of 460 MT of costal sprat has been caught in the Trondheimsfjord this week, mainly in Åsenfjorden, north of Stjørdal. The fishery was at its best at the beginning of the week.

The sprat in the Trondheimsfjord is large in size, no/kg under 70. This make it possible to utilize it both for canned food and seasoned products. As it is hard to come by large herring for seasoning from other countries the catches from the Trondheimsfjord have been more than welcome. The 260 MT sold for this utilization therefore contributes to saving the
Christmas anchovy this year.

Two vessels have caught a total of 970 MT ocean sprat by trawl. Of this year’s quota of 10 000 MT – 8.700 MT has been landed so far and 16 vessels have participated in the fishery. An additional two vessels still have the opportunity to participate as long as they sail out before November 30th. If there’s any quota left by December 1st additional vessels can sign up for the fishery.


Indirect consumption
Five trawlers have fished a total of 1.700 MT of Norway Pout, 740 MT of Blue Whiting and 350 MT of Argentine.