HB Grandi : Plenty of fish – but some not easily caught

06.10.2017

Plenty of fish - but some not easily caught

'Fishing has been pretty good. There's plenty of fish on the grounds but the problem is that the species we're looking for aren't the ones that are easily caught. At the top of the wish-list are Greenland halibut and deep sea redfish, and fishing for those two could be better,' said Kristinn Gestsson, skipper of HB Grandi's factory trawler Therney.

We spoke to him halfway through the current trip, and he said that to begin with they were searching for deep sea redfish along the deeper banks off the south coast and then off the east coast where there is also Greenland halibut to be found. There has been little deep sea redfish to be seen on these grounds.

'Now we're on the Hampiðjan Square off the west of Iceland looking for Greenland halibut and deep sea redfish. Greenland halibut aren't easy to pin down. There's plenty of cod and golden redfish here on the Westfjords grounds, but not much saithe to be seen. We get haddock in the shallower water from the Reykjafjörður gully and westwards from there, but they are sensitive to too much fishing pressure and those areas need to be rested at intervals,' he said, adding that it is always worth taking a look for species such as silver smelt.

'We searched for silver smelt along the banks on the way east, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of it there at the moment,' he said.

FacebookLinkedInGoogle +Email