HB Grandi : Heavy fishing around the ice

13.12.2017

Heavy fishing around the ice

'Let's just say that fishing hasn't been steady. There's sea ice and heavy weather that have been making things difficult for us, but when the wind has been right and the ice has collected, there has been some really good fishing,' said Eiríkur Jónsson, skipper of HB Grandi's trawler Sturlaugur H. Böðvarsson, which docked in Reykjavík last night at midnight after a trip to the Westfjords.

'We started east on the Strandagrunn grounds, in heavy weather and slow fishing. From there weshifted to the Thverálshorn and Hali grounds, where it was difficult to work for the sea ice. It was the same all along the edge and it wasn't until we had moved all the way west to the Víkuráll Gully that we found a patch of ground where we could work. There was some good fishing there but that dropped away as the number of trawlers working there increased,' Eiríkur Jónsson said, adding that he decided to try his luck further north.

'We were back on the north side late on Saturday, on a north-easterly breeze and the ice started to retreat. By then we were in the Djúpkrókur area that evening and there was some good cod fishing. This was clearly the migrating fish we had been waiting for all winter, with some roes, and although we didn't see capelin marks, this fish had certainly been feeding well on capelin,' he said and commented that by this time they had fished their cod allocation and it was time to be heading to port.

'We took one tow on redfish in the Jökultunga area on the way home and that was a good one,' Eiríkur Jónsson said.

Sturlaugur H. Böðvarsson's crew is now off for Christmas and the ship is expected to sail for its next trip right after Christmas. Early next year the crew will transfer to the new Akurey.

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