MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Falkland's News from the Fisheries Department

AFTER the very busy fishing season in February-May, the fishery in June was much quieter with a total catch of only 1,837 tonnes. This was however the highest catch for June since 2001.

A total of 60 licenses were valid in June, including 42 licenses for jiggers.

As predicted in our previous monthly report, the last aggregations of the late migrating South Patagonian Stock (LSPS) moved through the northernmost part of the FICZ further north to spawn in the warmer waters of the Brazil Current, off the coasts of Uruguay and southern Brazil.

Consequently, most of the jiggers licensed to fish for illex in Falkland waters preferred to fish on the high seas, with only two to four vessels remaining in the FICZ in the first half of the month.

After the storm on June 1, catches of the jiggers peaked for the last time at 16 tonnes per night on June 4. The following day, catches dropped to 1-3 tonnes per night and had not recovered by the end of the illex fishing season, which finished this year as normal on June 15.

Only large mature LSPS squid of 32-35 cm mantle length were observed in catches.

Trawlers took illex only as a small by-catch of 20-240 kg per day whilst targeting finfish in the FICZ. On the high seas, the illex by-catch was higher (average of 1.7 tonnes per day). It should be said that the trawlers were not seeking to catch illex on the high seas during their deepwater spawning migration (600-800m), preferring to catch more valuable hake in shallow waters at 140-170m depth.

Overall, the performance of this year's illex fishery excelled with a total Falkland catch of 85,619 tonnes taken so far. With the average daily catches being similar to the most successful illex year of 1999, one could only guess how large the total catch might have been this year with the appearance of the normal number of jiggers (~100 vessels).

Hopefully, the recovery of the illex stock in the Southwest Atlantic will attract more vessels to fish here next year!

Finfish

In keeping with previous months' activities, the main target species in June was hoki. The total monthly catch of 616 tonnes was the third highest catch in June in the last decade after the productive periods of 1999 and 2002.

Six to seven trawlers fished for hoki in the first week of the month, having an average catch of ten tonnes per day. Then, almost all vessels left the fishery with only one trawler remaining in the FICZ.

Her catches were highly variable. In some days the vessel could hardly make a ton of hoki, whereas sometimes she had as much as 25-30 tonnes per day.

The abundance of hake is on the rise this year. Their monthly catch again hit the record for the current millennium, being twice as much as the catches in June since1999. The hard work of both CFL longliners throughout the month (53 fishing days) did not bring them full satisfaction. One of the main reasons for relatively poor toothfish catches this month (98 tonnes) could be due to stock dispersal coinciding with spawning migrations from the northern feeding grounds to Burdwood Bank.

By Dr Sasha Arkhipkin - Senior Fisheries Scientist (PN)