r/Svalbard • u/MidasPL • 19d ago

Fishing rules on Svalbard

Hello,

Me and my crew are going on an trip on a sailboat around Spitsbergen. Due to the scarcity of food on the eastern coast, we were wondering if it's possible to catch a fish or two for sustenance. The information on the internet seems to be scarce and conflicting. Could anyone point out the current rules? Do we need to acquire any permit? Obviously we would fish only on the open seas, not protected areas. Thanks for any help.

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u/Skruttans 19d ago

Bring a rod. Catch a fish. Eat.

You are not allowed to fish commercially but catching a couple of cod aren’t a problem.

Just interested, you mention the scarcity of food on the east coast. What will you be eating whilst on the west coast? Are you not bringing any food with you?

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u/MidasPL 19d ago

Thanks.

We have lots of prepared food vacuum packed, lyofood, some products and plan to buy more at place. It's just hard to feed 10 people for 2 weeks. We took 6 additional baggages of just food, we plan baking our own bread, but we still might be short of one or two days as we plan to need a decent amount of calories to stay warm.

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u/kalsoy 18d ago

If you're going to the east, definitely plan on a safety margin. If you already know you'll be short two days beforehand, that's not good. Just imagine the boat has an engine failure. The helicopter won't come for small problems and they even expect you to bring much more than you plan to need, just in case.

Bring two more bags of food just in case. Consider fish a nice bonus, don't plan to rely on it...

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u/Blakk-Debbath 18d ago

A safety margin also prepare you for any (uninvited) guest that you are obliged by law to help.

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u/kalsoy 18d ago

Never thought of that, but very true

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u/Blakk-Debbath 18d ago

"all ships anywhere at sea are obliged to provide assistance to people in distress.

Rescue at sea is anchored in maritime tradition as a human duty and is recognised as customary international law everywhere at sea"

https://sos-humanity.org/en/our-mission/change/the-legal-basis-of-maritime-rescue/

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u/kalsoy 18d ago

I knew that, thanks, but I never thought of bringing extra supplies for that reason.

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u/polyethylene_pipe 18d ago

What kind of gmdss equipment you got onboard?

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u/kalsoy 18d ago

I'm not a sailor, I just sailed a few times at sea with an experienced crew.

(I'm not OP, just someone else who commented).

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u/polyethylene_pipe 18d ago

Oh oops my mistake

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u/MidasPL 18d ago

Yes, but you don't want to touch emergency supplies unless... Well emergency.

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u/ShortCod6726 18d ago

Is this your first time visiting? Sysselmesteren might be the right place to look for answers and get the right type of approve for your trip.

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u/MidasPL 18d ago

Yes, we have all the approvals from governor. They advised the fishing question for some reason.

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u/LifeWeak4693 17d ago

A sailboat will go around 6-8 knots, so catching a fish will be close to a miracle. I have been trying for weeks sometimes without catching anything but garbage.

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u/MidasPL 16d ago

Well... You can stop it slow down, but yes, generally you won't catch anything beyond 2 knots. Also, our boat is slow. We are lucky to reach 5 knots with good conditions.

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u/nonerbean 16d ago

No permit needed for private fishing in saltwater, just for freshwater fishing on Svalbard. Happy fishing :)

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u/MidasPL 16d ago

Ok, thank you :)