Total catch of Icelandic vessels in 2017 was 1,176.5 thousand tonnes, which is a 107 thousand tonnes increase from 2016. The increaese between years is mostly due to more capelin and blue-whiting catch, nearly 197 thousand tonnes of capelin were caught in 2017 compared with 101 thousand tonnes in 2016. Nearly 229 thousand tonnes of blue-whiting were caught compared with 187 thousand tonnes in 2016. Demersal catch was nearly 429 thousand tonnes last year which is a 6% decrease from 2016. As usually, cod catch is the largest part of the demersal species, where nearly 253 thousand tonnes were caught in 2017 which is 4% less than in the year before. Flatfish catch decresed by 8% between years and nearly 22 thousand tonnes were caught in 2017. Shellfish catch was 10.4 thousand tonnes in 2017 compared with 12.7 thousand tonnes in 2016.
In December 2017, the total catch was just over 70 thousand tonnes, an increase of 18% compared with December 2016. The catch was more in all key specimens in December 2017 than in the same month in the year befoer, but a fishermen’s strike which started on December 14th 2016 had large effect.
| Fish catch | ||||||
| December | January-December | |||||
| 2016 | 2017 | % | 2016 | 2017 | % | |
| Fish catch at constant prices | ||||||
| Index | 55.0 | 66.4 | 20.7 | |||
| Fish catch in tonnes | ||||||
| Total catch | 59,576 | 70,214 | 18 | 1,069,855 | 1,176,545 | 10 |
| Demersal catch | 26,364 | 32,272 | 22 | 456,944 | 428,960 | -6 |
| Cod | 15,907 | 20,023 | 26 | 264,358 | 252,751 | -4 |
| Haddock | 2,291 | 2,959 | 29 | 38,585 | 36,193 | -6 |
| Saithe | 2,630 | 3,973 | 51 | 49,633 | 49,349 | -1 |
| Redfish | 4,093 | 3,391 | -17 | 63,656 | 58,547 | -8 |
| Other demersal catch | 1,441 | 1,926 | 34 | 40,712 | 32,120 | -21 |
| Flatfish | 803 | 961 | 20 | 23,939 | 21,926 | -8 |
| Pelagic catch | 32,160 | 36,602 | 14 | 576,166 | 715,219 | 24 |
| Herring | 13,308 | 5,186 | -61 | 117,615 | 124,270 | 6 |
| Capelin | 0 | 0 | - | 101,089 | 196,832 | 95 |
| Blue whiting | 18,852 | 31,416 | 67 | 186,915 | 228,928 | 22 |
| Mackerel | 0 | 0 | - | 170,541 | 165,188 | -3 |
| Other pelagic catch | 0 | 0 | - | 5 | 0 | -93 |
| Shellfish | 250 | 379 | 52 | 12,720 | 10,406 | -18 |
| Other species | 0 | 0 | - | 86 | 35 | -60 |
Information about catch of fish which are published in this press release are preliminary figures. The data is gathered by the Directorate of Fisheries.