The blue whiting fishery for the Scottish pelagic fleet has now commenced, with the Peterhead based vessels Pathway and Lunar Bow the first to head to the Atlantic grounds, with several other boats joining in the coming days.
The fishery is taking place off Donegal in Ireland. The fish are spread far and wide, with Norwegian, Faroese and Russian boats working in international waters 200 miles further west than where Scottish and EU vessels are operating.
Around half of the Scottish fleet has blue whiting quota and some boats will not start the fishery until the fish migrate into Scottish waters in March. For Scottish mackerel and herring fishermen, blue whiting forms an important annual eight-week fishery that generally starts in late February. It is particularly important for keeping onshore pelagic processing (primarily in Ireland) and fishmeal/oil facilities busy in what would otherwise be a quiet period when there is no mackerel and herring fishing happening.
A member of the cod family, the blue whiting is a medium sized fish that is typically about 22 to 30cm in length. They have unusual behaviour in that unlike their cousins the cod and haddock, which are found on the seabed, blue whiting are largely midwater swimmers and behave more like pelagic fish such as herring and mackerel. They form large shoals at depths of around 400m along the continental shelf.
Blue whiting is found off the west of Ireland in the early part of the year where they congregate to spawn before then gradually migrating northwards past Scotland and up into Faroese and Norwegian waters to spend the summer.
The blue whiting quota is down five per cent this year compared to 2024. The human consumption market for blue whiting in west Africa has been very limited in the past couple of years because of the small size of fish due to the large recruitment coming into the fishery. This market should improve this year as the fish are a year older and will have grown nearer the minimum market size suitable for human consumption of 180 grammes. Most of the catch is processed for fishmeal, with the price paid through pelagic sales organisation Norges Sildsalgslag reported to be slightly higher this year compared with the corresponding period in 2024.
There is also one Scottish boat – the Sunbeam – currently fishing for boarfish off Ireland. Boarfish have thin, oval-shaped bodies and have a widespread distribution in the north-east Atlantic.
The UK boarfish quota allocation is only 2,436 tonnes, but this provides a welcome alternate fishery outside of the main mackerel and herring seasons. Boarfish is sold for fishmeal and there hasn’t been a human consumption market developed to date.