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The Herring Stock in Norwegian coastal waters. 
Norwegian Herring Fisheries. 
Herring Fishery is carried on along the whole of the Norwegian coast, in the fiords, 
among the islands, and in the open sea off the shore. The fishermen use nets and seines, 
stake-nets which are anchored along the bottom or to floats, and drift nets, which are 
fastened together in a chain, and drift with the boat or vessel at night. The seines cut 
off the shoals, either along the shore (shore seines) or at some little distance from land 
(purse-seines). The nets used take only certain sizes of fish, according to the width of 
mesh, and nets with many different sizes of mesh are therefore employed, having regard 
to what kind of fish is expected to be caught. The semes are of fine mesh, and can fre- 
quently take all herrings down to 7 or 8 cm. in length; it is very rarely, however, that 
all sizes of herring are found in one and the same seine haul. This is due to the fact that 
the different sizes of fish move in separate shoals, apart from one another. There are 
thus many different kinds of herring fishery carried on m the Norwegian coastal waters, 
and many different “sorts” of herring are recognised, according to the size most com- 
mon in the different shoals. These sorts have been known, both among the fishermen 
and in the trade, from time immemorial, and a great amount of care and study has been 
devoted to the question of dividing them according to some rational method of assort- 
ment. 
The fishery statistics distinguish between four great principal groups; small herring, 
fat herring, large herring, and spring herring*). It is also possible to distinguish, practi- 
cally speaking, between four different kinds of herring fishery, corresponding to these 
four classes, and differing, not only as regards the method of capture employed, but 
also in point of place and time of same, being carried on, for the most part, in different 
regions of the coastal waters, and at different periods of the year, In the year 1908, 
the catches of the different classes were as follows: (given in hectolitres). 
Spring Large Fat Small 
Herring Herring. Herring Herring 
West Coast.... 613.356 BR 605 47.880 
Romsdal ...... 11.500 101.320 4.990 18.151 
Trondelagen ... ace 9.628 73.852 39.320 
Nordland ..... kee 800 408.654 77.100 
Tromse district bee 9 127.500 48.100 
Finmarken .... au eee ee an 92.580 
*) As will be seen in the following, a fifth main group may also be noticed, which could be 
called “Norwegian North Sea herrings”. These most nearly resemble the so-called “large herrings”, 
but are taken in the eastern waters of the North Sea. 
