Experimental jigging with light attraction on European flying squid (Todarodes sagittatus) in Icelandic waters with notes on earlier trawl-fishing trials and traces of the species annually recorded in bottom trawl surveys.

No abstracts are to be cited without prior reference to the author.

In September 2010 The Marine Research Institute (MRI) conducted an expedition aimed at fishery trials for squid (Todarodes sagittatus). A research vessel (186 BWT) was equipped with modern jigging machines as well as two kinds of light-tools to attract the squid and a relatively vast off-shore area was covered. The impetus for the experiment were growing signs of a comeback of the squid but this time more off-shore above the slopes of the Icelandic continental shelf rather than in in-shore waters as in the earlier days. In this poster the results – not very promising in terms of squid catches – of the jigging trial (methodology, and area covered) are presented. The poster describes to some extent results of earlier fishing trials with pelagic trawls and biological parameters (length, weight maturity) of the squid sampled are shortly mentioned. Traces of Todarodes are annually found in the Icelandic autumn bottom trawl surveys especially after the year 2000 culminating in 2008. Results from squid recorded in these surveys are also partly presented. Attention is also paid to the newly started (2010, 2013) registration of Todarodes in the Icelandic fish-statistic through by-catch of the species in the far off-shore blue whiting fisheries.