From catches of hundreds of kilos to a few single herrings per night.
Now fishermen in the county testify that last year's bad catches continue this year as well.
- Yesterday we got 1.6 kilos, the time before that we got eight herrings, says Lars Lundgren, fisherman in Rovögern.
On Rovögern's fish, they normally produce just over 5,000 cans of sour herring per year.
Last year, there were only 500 cans due to the lack of herring, which seems to be holding up.
"Terribly bad"
Fishermen in Gävle and Sundsvall have been sounding the alarm about herring shortages for a long time.
Nils-Erik Sjöström in Obbola outside Umeå, believes that they have done better further north, but in recent years the problems have spread here as well.
He experiences that the herring stock nowadays mostly consists of small fish that do not get caught in any nets.
- We have received more than last year but it is terribly bad.
Last year we got 10 percent of the need and this year we got 20 percent and then we were lucky and happened to find fish, says Nils-Erik Sjöström, fisherman in Obbola and continues:
- It looks bad for the future.