Commercial marine fishery 2021 (preliminary)

According to preliminary estimates, Finland’s commercial marine fishermen caught a total of 94 million kilos of fish in 2021. It was 18 million kilos less than in the year before.
A total of 73 million kilos of Baltic herring and 15 million kilos of sprat were caught. The Baltic herring catch decreased by 19 million kilos and the sprat catch increased by 2 million kilos from the previous year.
The Baltic herring and sprat catches, mainly caught from the open sea by the trawler fleet, contained 94% of the total commercial marine catch. One sixth of the Baltic herring catch and a little more than half of the sprat catch were landed outside Finland.
A total of 40 vessels deployed trawls, while over 1,000 fishermen used other types of gear.
The majority of fishermen were operating in coastal areas and deployed trap nets and gillnets to catch, for example, perch, European whitefish, pike, pikeperch, bream, roach and salmon.
Compared with average catches in the 2000s, the smelt and vendace catches were higher last year. The pikeperch and European whitefish catches were half of the average catches in the 2000s, while the trout catch remained at a quarter. In addition, the salmon, burbot and pike catches were lower than on average.
There were a little more than 1,000 active fishermen, half of the corresponding figure at the beginning of the 2000s.