Catch and fishing gear
After the collapse of the herring stocks, the Icelandic pelagic fleet changed to capelin, which had been virtually ignored before. The capelin fishery was the most important pelagic fishery until 2004 when the value of herring catches again surpassed the capelin. However, these are mostly the same boats fishing all the pelagic species with purse seines or more recently pelagic trawls.
The capelin stock has often sustained a catch of more than 1 million t annually since 1978, often as much catch as all other species combined. The highest catches were in 1996 and 1997, about 1.5 million tones. The stock migrates to Greenlandic and Norwegian waters close to Jan Mayen, and therefore it is managed by agreement between these nations. Commonly there are two fishing seasons; the main winter season in January-April, fishing mainly 3-4 year old capelin and the summer season in the second half of the year for 2-3 year old capelin. The majority of the catch has been from the winter season in the past few years.