Photo: Torbjørn Hide - Smaragd fishing for blue whiting 2025

The Norwegian Pelagic Fishing Course in Week 6

NORWAY
Tuesday, February 11, 2025, 00:10 (GMT + 9)

Strong week for blue whiting fishing in the west, and on the home stretch in NVG herring fishing.

Blue whiting:

It was a fantastic week for blue whiting fishing, with a total of 57,700 tonnes recorded. Of the week's catch, a full 31,800 tonnes were reported on Sunday. This is from 29 different boats, where catches range from 950 tonnes to as much as 3,300 tonnes for the largest catch.

The entire quantity was fished in international waters, over 200 nautical miles southwest of Ireland. Fishing in this area varied considerably in the first part of the week, as the blue whiting was more spread out and weather conditions hampered fishing somewhat.

Over the weekend, the boats encountered plenty of fish, and good weather allowed the boats to make good trawl hauls in a short time.

This year's blue whiting quota is as much as 406,000 tonnes, and it is gratifying that we are getting such good fishing already early in February. Normally, we have the best fishing in the latter part of February and in March.

Good participation is expected in the coming weeks, and the hope is that the weather gods and the availability of fish will be on the side of the blue whiting fishermen.

NVG herring:

Only a few boats have been hunting herring out at sea off Troms. From eight different boats, one of which is foreign, we have a total of 6,200 tonnes last week. Catches here range from 245 tonnes to 1,450 tonnes for the largest catch. The catches were taken in the first part of the week, while there have been gale and storm force winds in the latter part.

The herring has not been in a hurry to swim south to the spawning grounds. The catches are mainly fished around 30 nautical miles northwest of Torsvåg (Vannøya).

The average sizes of the herring vary from 190 g to just under 290 g. The largest herring is the one that is first "in line" on its journey towards the spawning grounds.

A couple of smaller catches have also been taken on the Helgeland coast with herring in the size of 220-230 grams.

Just under 106,000 tonnes have now been fished of this year's quota of 258,000 tonnes. This is slightly more than last winter, when a total of 100,000 tonnes were fished in that season.

We expect little activity in herring fishing going forward, where only a few Norwegian boats are considering herring fishing.

Since we have an agreement with the British that they can fish NVG herring in the Norwegian zone, there may be some from there who choose herring fishing now in winter.

Then it will be exciting to see how far south the herring comes for spawning this year.

Horse mackerel:

In wintertime, some of the smallest boats hunt for horse mackerel in the fjords. So far this winter, the fishing has not been great, and just over 180 tonnes have been fished from these boats. This week we had a catch of 24 tonnes fished in Tysnes municipality.

If we look at previous years, for example three years ago, we fished between 300 tonnes and 1,000 tonnes.

This fishing is often best around the full moon, so we will hope for a bit of an upswing at the full moon now on February 12th.

European sprat:

One boat, "Astrid Marie", reported on Wednesday 1,300 tonnes of sprat caught in the Baltic Sea, in the area southeast of Gotland.

The catch is fished with trawl and is sold for meal/oil use.

Author/Source: Kenneth Garvik/Norges Sildesalgslag

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www.seafood.media

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