Commercial inland fishery catch slides

The commercial inland fishery catch totalled 5.3 million kilograms in 2020, which was about one million kilograms lower than in the previous year, but as high as two years ago, according to the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke).

The number of crayfish catch totalled 774,000, of which almost all were signal crayfish.

The total value of the commercial inland fishery catch was EUR 15.4 million, being nearly EUR 2 million lower than in the previous year.

“The pikeperch catch continued to increase slightly from the previous year’s record level, with pikeperch being, for the first time, the most important inland species measured by the value of the catch. The size of the pikeperch catch totalled 0.91 million kilos, and the largest catches were recorded in the North Karelia and Kainuu regions. The vendace catch was 2.1 million kilos, the smallest in the 2000s. When measured by the catch volume, roach was the third most significant species with its catch of 0.65 million kilos,” said Mika Rahikainen, senior statistician at Luke.

While vendace has been the most important inland species measured by both volume and value, the value of the pikeperch catch was slightly higher than that of the vendace catch in 2020, even if the value of vendace roe is included.

The value of the pikeperch catch was EUR 5.7 million and that of the vendace catch was EUR 5.0 million, of which roe accounted for EUR 0.1 million.

Combined, these two species accounted for three quarters of the total value of the commercial inland fish catch.

Signal crayfish was the third most important inland resource at a value of EUR 927,000. The signal crayfish catch decreased slightly in 2018, while increasing during the two subsequent years, being 766,000 specimen in 2020. The noble crayfish catch was down to only 8,000 specimen.

European whitefish (EUR 877,000), perch (EUR 711,000), roach (EUR 569,000) and pike (EUR 561,000) continued to be important species. The catch volume and value of all these species decreased by 10–25% from the previous year.

At the end of 2020, the register of commercial fishermen maintained by the ELY Centre included 1,637 commercial fishermen. However, some fishermen were not engaged in any fishing activities, and many caught small catches.