A fish blog.com

In March and April a Norwegian fishing vessel was a part of a multinational survey on the fishing grounds west of Ireland. The survey covered the spawning area of the blue whiting in order to collect data about the blue whiting stock. Acoustic data and biological samples gives the scientists a good impression of the size of the stock and its age composition. Sometimes the catch includes more than just blue withing. On the picture below you can see an Atlantic pomfret (Brama brama) caught by trawl.

The Atlantic pomfret can reach a length of 1 meter and it it is found in all oceans (except the North Pacific) where it can be caught on different depths down to 1000 meters. It is not a rare fish all though Norwegian fishermen rarely see them.

On the picture above you see more of the catch sorted out from the blue whiting. The small fish are Benthosema glaciale (also referred to as “lanternfish”), the long and flat fish with red fins are deal fish, and you can also see some mackerels. Photos: Øyvind Tangen

The Atlantic halibut is one of the biggest fish found in Norwegian waters. While the female halibut can reach a weight of more than 200 kilos, the male is considerably smaller. The pictures shown on this post are taken during a tagging experiment in the western part of Norway. The halibuts are caught on long lines.

It was believed that the maximum size of male halibuts in Norwegian waters was about 50 kilos which was the weight of the biggest male halibut caught by then.

A couple of days ago I got some pictures in my mailbox. The pictures were sent me by Torstein Halstensen who is an eager halibut-tagger. He uses a lot of his spare time and holidays to catch and tag halibut in order to get better knowledge about the behaviour of this vulnerable species.

The halibut shown on this page is a male which proportions are breaking the former record. This male was 1,75 meters long, weighing 75-80 kilos.

The fish was tagged and released, and if it get caught again we will learn more about the maximum size of male halibuts.