Commercial marine fishery 2019

Fishing vessels registered in Finland caught a total of 135 million kilos of fish in 2019. The total value of the catch was EUR 37 million.

A total of 113 million kilos of Baltic herring and 16 million kilos of sprat were caught. The Baltic herring catch decreased by fourteen million kilos from the previous year, while the sprat catch remained unchanged.

Baltic herring and sprat were mainly caught from the open sea by trawlers.  In coastal areas, most fishermen used trap nets and gillnets to catch, for example, European whitefish, perch, vendace, salmon and pikeperch. Perch, salmon, vendace, European whitefish and smelt catches increased from the previous year but, apart from smelt and vendace catches, were lower than on average in the 2000s.

Both the number of active fishermen and the volume of fishery catches decreased.