Ling

Molva molva


Assessment report
Published by

Marine and Freshwater Research Institute, Iceland

Published

12 June 2026

Key signals

  • Total stock biomass observed in the spring survey declined steadily from 1985 to 2000, when it increased again and reached a high level in 2011-2012. Subsequently in decreased again, but since 2021 biomass has increased and is currently at one of the highest levels observed.

  • Abundance of small ling (<40 cm) in the spring survey peaked in 2007 and was high until 2010, when it decreased substantially to very low levels in 2012. Since 2020, the abundance has been increasing steadily. Length distributions from the spring survey show a similar pattern as survey indices, with the 2012-2018 peak in abundance observed as high proportions of fish in the range of 60–100 cm, that has slowly decreased as they have reached sizes 80–120 cm.

  • Biomass of large ling (>80 cm) in the spring survey was relatively stable from 1985 to 2001, but has since increased and is now at the highest level recorded.

  • Fishing mortality (F, ages 8–11) has generally declined since 1984 and in 2022 and 2023 was below FMGT. In 2024 and 2025 it increased slightly and was above FMGT, but remains below FPA and Flim.

  • Recruitment increased rapidly from 1999 until 2008, when it reached its highest level. Since then, recruitment decreased and is now at similar levels as before the increase.

General information

The common ling is one of the largest fish of the Gadiformes order reaching a maximum length of 200 cm, with a mean length of about 70-90 cm according to data from the annual Icelandic spring groundfish survey. It is a demersal fish that preys on fish and invertebrates and can be found at depths 10 and 1300 meters but is mainly caught at depths between 100 and 400 meters. It reaches sexual maturity at the age of 5-8 years and 60-80 cm total length. Ling spawns in May and June mostly along the edges of the south, southwest and west of the Icelandic continental shelf.

Fishery

Landings trends

In 1947 to 1971, landings of ling from Icelandic waters ranged between 8000 to more than 15000 tonnes. Landings decreased between 1972 and 2000 to as little as 3000 tonnes as a result of most foreign vessels being excluded from the Icelandic EEZ. In 2001-2010, catches increased constantly and reached 11 000 tonnes in 2010 and remained at that level for the most part until 2014, when the catches increased to 14 000 tonnes. Since 2014, ling catches have reduced, but increased again after 2021, and in 2025, 9791 tonnes were landed (Table 1 and Figure 1)

Figure 1: Ling. Nominal landings from Icelandic waters.

The fishery for ling in Icelandic waters has not changed substantially in recent years. Around 100-300 longliners annually report catches of ling, around 30-200 gillnetters and around 50-120 trawlers. Most of ling is caught on longlines (Figure 2, Table 1) which has increased since 2000 to around 67 % in 2025. At the same time the proportion caught by gillnets has decreased from 20–30% in 2000–2007 to approximately 2% in 2025. Catches in trawls have varied less and have been at around 20-30% of Icelandic catches (Figure 2). Most of the ling caught by Icelandic longliners is caught at depths less than 300 m, and by trawlers at less than 400 m (Figure 3). The main fishing grounds for ling as observed from logbooks are in the south, southwestern and western part of the Icelandic shelf (Figure 4). The main trend in the spatial distribution of catches according to logbook entries is the decreased proportion of catches in the southeast and increased catches on the western part of the shelf two decades ago. Around 50% of ling catches are caught on the southwestern part of the shelf (Figure 5). In recent years, the main fishing pressure has shifted towards shallower waters (Figure 3).

Table 1: Ling. Number of Icelandic boats and their catches (in tonnes) by fleet segment participating in the ling fishery, based on logbooks. Total catch is from both Icelandic and foreign vessels in Icelandic waters.
Year Nr. Bottom Trawl Nr. Gillnets Nr. Long Line Bottom Trawl Gillnets Long Line Other Total catch
2000 125 184 289 726 704 1 540 70 3 284
2001 108 232 254 493 1 061 1 101 481 3 362
2002 100 203 235 664 648 1 283 1 674 4 519
2003 96 172 244 583 454 2 215 680 4 270
2004 97 165 234 656 545 2 017 886 4 606
2005 99 127 260 989 501 2 046 896 5 198
2006 91 99 259 1 246 629 3 734 1 124 7 404
2007 91 86 251 1 395 633 4 042 1 030 7 591
2008 82 68 209 1 509 477 5 007 1 576 9 283
2009 77 78 208 1 540 723 6 232 1 184 10 773
2010 75 69 197 1 538 363 6 532 1 124 10 963
2011 67 61 201 1 676 222 5 595 857 9 626
2012 68 62 206 1 396 245 7 479 1 143 11 817
2013 71 62 209 1 610 345 6 836 1 334 11 581
2014 64 57 220 1 707 673 10 624 12 14 246
2015 64 55 207 1 911 650 9 249 6 13 035
2016 65 55 186 1 825 681 6 545 9 9 884
2017 67 48 171 1 527 556 5 975 5 8 766
2018 63 47 151 1 606 387 5 366 11 8 062
2019 61 33 148 1 666 115 5 964 2 8 269
2020 63 36 124 1 677 138 4 765 6 7 061
2021 64 39 119 1 836 126 4 829 3 7 128
2022 62 30 103 2 232 262 4 917 0 7 657
2023 58 32 88 2 518 176 5 652 0 8 560
2024 59 30 80 2 573 159 5 898 0 8 868
2025 53 30 84 2 722 216 6 534 0 9 791
Figure 2: Ling. Total catch (landings) by fishing gear since 1994, according to statistics from the Directorate of Fisheries.
Figure 3: Ling. Depth distribution of ling catches from longlines and trawls from Icelandic logbooks.
Figure 4: Ling. Geographical distribution (tonnes/square mile) of the Icelandic longline fishery since 2005 as reported in logbooks by the Icelandic fleet.
Figure 5: Ling. Catch distribution and proportions by area according to logbooks.

Landings and discards

Data on landings by Icelandic vessels are collected by the Icelandic Directorate of Fisheries. Landings of Norwegian and Faroese vessels are registered through the Icelandic Coast Guard. Discarding is banned by law in the Icelandic demersal fishery. Based on limited data, discard rates in the Icelandic longline fishery for ling are estimated very low (<1% in either numbers or weight) (WGDEEP, ICES 2011:WD02). Measures in the management system such as converting quota share from one species to another are used by the fleet to a large extent and this is thought to discourage discarding in mixed fisheries.

Data and sampling

In general sampling is considered good from commercial catches from the main gears and seems to cover the spatial distribution of catches (Figure 6). Similarly, sampling does seem to follow the temporal distribution of catches (Figure 6).

Figure 6: Ling. Spatial distribution of length samples (black dots) from commercial catches in Icelandic waters (upper) and numbers of samples taken per month by project (bars) and proportion of landings per month (black line) (lower).

Length compositions

Most length measurements of ling are from longlines and bottom trawls (Table 2). The number of available length measurements increased in recent years in line with increased landings but in 2020 they were fewer (due to the covid pandemic). Length distributions from the Icelandic longline and trawling fleet are presented in Figure 7. Sampling from commercial catches of ling is considered good; both in terms of spatial and temporal distribution of samples (Figure 6).

Table 2: Ling. Number of available length measurements from Icelandic commercial catches.
Year Trawls Demersal seine Gillnets Longlines Other Total
2000 377 0 566 1 624 6 2 573
2001 37 0 493 1 661 0 2 191
2002 221 0 366 1 504 0 2 091
2003 137 0 300 2 405 143 2 985
2004 141 46 348 2 640 0 3 175
2005 349 101 31 2 323 150 2 954
2006 1 157 0 645 3 354 401 5 557
2007 400 76 0 3 661 0 4 137
2008 819 15 357 5 847 150 7 188
2009 516 0 410 9 014 450 10 390
2010 1 146 0 57 7 322 1 199 9 724
2011 1 245 150 0 7 248 750 9 393
2012 1 411 150 85 11 356 1 337 14 339
2013 993 122 267 9 405 1 344 12 131
2014 2 089 120 1 286 6 448 2 964 12 907
2015 2 615 0 1 563 3 315 3 052 10 545
2016 2 460 0 2 039 2 483 1 212 8 194
2017 1 963 0 485 1 637 1 226 5 311
2018 1 603 0 559 1 424 712 4 298
2019 1 830 0 0 3 598 819 6 247
2020 1 718 0 124 1 099 498 3 439
2021 2 028 0 0 1 056 466 3 550
2022 1 805 0 370 563 1 534 4 272
2023 2 423 0 90 1 284 0 3 797
2024 1 434 134 0 1 660 0 3 228
2025 3 035 0 258 2 452 0 5 745
Figure 7: Ling. Length distribution from the Icelandic fleet from 2003-2025.

Age compositions

Aged data are available from 2000 onwards (Table 3). In previous years, most of the ling caught in the Icelandic spring survey were between age 5 and 8 but from longlines the age was between 6 and 9. The past several years have shown a much larger composition of older fish, common up to 12, from both sample sources (see Survey Data, next section).

Table 3: Ling. Number of aged otoliths from the commercial catches.
Year Longlines Gillnets Demersal seine Trawls Other Total
2000 650 200 0 150 0 1 000
2001 550 193 0 37 0 780
2002 519 166 0 150 0 835
2003 900 100 0 100 50 1 150
2004 750 100 46 100 0 996
2005 750 0 0 181 50 981
2006 1 137 288 0 450 100 1 975
2007 1 300 0 50 100 0 1 450
2008 1 950 150 0 315 50 2 465
2009 2 550 150 0 250 150 3 100
2010 2 498 50 0 450 400 3 398
2011 2 546 0 50 450 250 3 296
2012 3 521 50 50 541 400 4 562
2013 2 590 100 50 350 450 3 540
2014 665 225 20 399 514 1 823
2015 595 300 0 483 520 1 898
2016 440 345 0 460 220 1 465
2017 310 85 0 370 225 990
2018 245 100 0 310 120 775
2019 385 0 0 340 140 865
2020 225 40 0 355 102 722
2021 180 0 0 398 100 678
2022 183 80 0 400 318 981
2023 320 20 0 564 0 904
2024 340 0 40 359 0 739
2025 420 60 0 565 0 1 045
Figure 8: Ling. Catch at age from the commercial fishery in Iceland waters. Bar size is indicative of the catch in numbers and bars are coloured by cohort.
Figure 9: Ling. Catch at age from the commercial fishery in Iceland waters. Biomass caught by year and age; bars are coloured by cohort.

Weight at age in catch

Mean weight at age in the catch is shown in Figure 10. Catch weights of the older year classes (8-12 years) have been increasing in recent years and have mostly been above average since 2018. The opposite is seen in catch weights of younger age classes, where the mean weight has been below the average for the past years.

Figure 10: Ling. Mean weight at age in the catch from the commercial fishery in Icelandic waters. Bars are coloured by cohort.

Survey data

The CPUE estimates of ling from commercial fisheries in Icelandic waters have not been considered representative of stock abundance.

Survey data

The Icelandic spring groundfish survey, which has been conducted annually in March since 1985, covers the most important distribution area of the ling fishery. In addition, the autumn survey was commenced in 1996 and expanded in 2000, however a full autumn survey was not conducted in 2011 and therefore the results for 2011 are not presented.

Figure 11 shows distribution of ling in groundfish surveys in spring 2026 and autumn 2025. Figure 12 shows both a recruitment index and the trends in biomass from both surveys. Length distributions from the spring survey are shown in Figure 13 (abundance) and changes in spatial distribution in the spring survey are presented in (Figure 14).

Ling in both the spring and autumn surveys are mainly found in the deeper waters south and west off Iceland. Both the total biomass index and the index of the fishable biomass (>40 cm) gradually decreased in the spring survey until 1995 (Figure 12). In the years 1995-2003 these indices were half of the mean from 1985–1989. In 2003-2007, the recruitment indices increased and remained high until 2010. The index of the large ling (80 cm and larger) shows a similar trend as the total biomass index (Figure 12). The recruitment index of ling, defined here as ling smaller than 40 cm, showed a considerable increase in 2003-2007 and remained high until 2010. Then the juvenile index fell to a very low level in 2014 and remained low until 2021. Since then, the recruitment indices have been ascending, as well as the indices of larger fish as it reached the highest recorded value in the time series in 2024 (Figure 12).

Length distributions from the spring survey show a similar pattern as survey indices, with the 2012-2018 peak in abundance observed as high proportions of fish in the range of 60–100 cm, that has slowly decreased as they have reached sizes 80–120 cm (Figure 13). This pattern is likely to have caused the increase in ling sizes observed in the trawl samples (Figure 7).

Biomass indices in the autumn survey were low in 1996-2000 but have increased since then (Figure 12). There is consistency between the two surveys; the autumn survey biomass indices are however derived from substantially fewer ling caught. Also, there is an inconsistency in recruitment indices (<40 cm), where the autumn survey shows much lower recruitment, in absolute terms compared with the spring survey (Figure 12). This discrepancy is likely a result of much lower catchability of small ling (due to different gears) in the autumn survey, where ling less than 40 cm has rarely been caught.

Changes in spatial distribution as observed in surveys: According to the spring survey most of the increase during the 2012–2018 peak in ling abundance was in the western area, but an increase was seen in most areas. However, most of the index in terms of biomass comes from the southwestern area or around 40% compared to around 30% between 2003 and 2011. Since 2016, the amounts of biomass in the west and southwest have, however, reduced while the proportions in the southeast have increased, leading to a greater contribution of ling from the northwest and southeast to the total index. A similar pattern is observed in the autumn survey.