Dab, Common – Iceland Common Dab is a small species of flatfish
that grows fast and becomes sexually mature within four years.
Dab is found on shallow, sandy bottoms throughout the Northeast
Atlantic, and in Iceland they are found all around the country.
Common Dab is mostly caught with Danish seines in Icelandic
waters, which cause little to moderate damage to the seafloor.
In Iceland, catches peaked at 8,000 tons in the mid 1990s but
have declined sharply over the past decade to under 1,000 tons,
indicating low abundance. In response to this decline,
management has restricted the amount of Common Dab that can be
landed so that the total commercial catch does not exceed the
number of Dab that are taken as bycatch in other fisheries.