Happy days for cod fishermen

After many years of scarce cod fishing in Faroese waters, things suddenly turned around just before Easter.

“One of my crew members who has been fishing all his life said that he had never before seen such a big group of large cod,” says shipowner Osmundur Justinussen.

“The man had been fishing north of the Faroes shortly before Easter, and some of the cod he caught weighed up to 50 pounds. Fish of this size can be 10-15 years old.”

Colder water

This brings us to the big question of how the cod became so big considering that good-sized cod have not been seen in Faroese waters for many years.

”I don’t have an exact answer,” says the shipowner, ”but the cod probably grew up on the open sea and then ended up near the Faroes.”

The seawater around the Faroes has cooled down somewhat in recent years, having gone from about 10 degrees Celsius in the past few years to 6-7 degrees today.

”These are ideal conditions for cod, and these in temperatures, large cod tend to seek the bottom of the sea.”

Pacific weather phenomena

The reason behind this is to be found in the Pacific Ocean, where the El Niño and La Niña – the warm and cool phases of a recurring climate pattern across the tropical Pacific – play a crucial part.

La Niña has dominated in the past four years, warming up the seawater around the Faroes. But now that El Niño is making a return, the water is starting to cool down again.

“This improves the living conditions for white cod on the Faroe Shelf,” says Justinussen. “But it’s impossible to say whether this pattern will hold true in the future.”

Read the Faroese version of this article here.

More Faroese News in English.