Lobster prices to drop
Countryman / Bob Garnant ©
The price of western rock
lobsters is set to plummet when a ban on fishing is lifted in two weeks
because the market will be flooded with an oversupply of stock.
A
State Government-imposed ban on rock lobster fishing was extended in
the B zone yesterday until January 24. Department of Fisheries chief
executive Stuart Smith said the rock lobster industry advisory
committee would meet tomorrow to review progress for catch targets in
the B and C zones for next season.
"The additional closure in
the fishery is needed to achieve the goal of restricting the overall
catch for this season to 5500 tonnes, with separate catch targets for
each fishing zone for the first and second halves of the season," Mr
Smith said.
But fishermen have left up to 5000 pots in the water
during the closure of the fishery, which started on Christmas Eve.
About 50 tonnes of lobster are expected to be pulled from the water
later this month when the ban is lifted, flooding the market and
driving down the beach price to about $21/kg.
Geraldton
Professional Fishermen Association vice-president Terry Mouchemore said
the ban was pointless because pots would be full when the ban was
lifted.
"When all the fishermen in the B zone resume fishing,
there could be about half of our remaining total allowance catch
flooding the market," Mr Mouchemore said.
He said the most
lucrative returns for lobsters would come about February 14, when
demand for the Chinese New Year peaked but if fishing continued, many
fishermen could miss out. "We need a three-week lead-up to allow for
freight and the market hasn't been tested like this in the past, so we
don't even know if we will have enough," he said.
scottscurious
Posts: 236
Date Joined: 17/03/09
$21/kg beach price?!?! last
$21/kg beach price?!?! last year during deep water the price got down to $14/kg or so in C zone.....what do they mean plummet!!if i was catching as many cray with $21/kg i would be laughing!
Bodie
Posts: 3758
Date Joined: 05/11/07
i would of thought they
i would of thought they would have had to pull there pots from the water??? not leave them out there???
Would of thought alot of the crays int he pots would die, either from lack of food, occys, wobbies etc?
Paul G
Posts: 5215
Date Joined: 12/12/07
Was watching the boats come
Was watching the boats come in on the opening day after the ten day closure. Most i seen had 500-700kg not a lot for ten days ,if they had fished through they would have caught 5-7 times that amount and maybe more ,as the crays were pretty thick out there.
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Faulkner Family
Posts: 18084
Date Joined: 11/03/08
up until the closure Kailis
up until the closure Kailis were processing up to 50 tonne on each delivery night. that adds up to a shit load of crays to get rid of. a quite a large amount of fresh crays are sold live to the overseas market at a good price and then you take a look at what we have left , small crays at barely size and paying ridiculous prices. why couldnt they just kept the season open and then closed it early at the end
RUSS and SANDY. A family that fishes together stays together
Mick
Posts: 501
Date Joined: 28/08/06
Just to split the whites and
Just to split the whites and the reds Russ. Whites are less valuable on the overseas market. And if they had of kept fishing then the season would be over now. All I keep hearing up here is " We need a quota based system " but apparently it will take 4 years to implement. Funny how they can chop and change a season, days of catch, pot reductions, etc at the drop of a hat.
If the lord did not mean for us to eat fish and game, he wouldn't have made them outta meat
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Stev0
Posts: 113
Date Joined: 19/12/07
A bunch of cray fisherman
A bunch of cray fisherman protested outside of Norman Moores office today, they gave out free crayfish to anyone who walked by until they ran out, each cray company put in 5kg of crays each. I didnt stay around for long (lunch break) but apparently one of Moore's juniors went down and got into an argument with some of the fisherman. From my understanding one of the main reasons for the protest was to do with the commercial restrictions due to our stocks being apparently low (fisheries dept research stats), their argument is that crayfish stocks are not reducing and they shouldnt be faced with such dramatic decisions/restrictions at short notice (i.e. xmas break closure).
Watch Channel 9 tonight, i am sure it will be on there as there were about 3 other stations down there all with their cameras.
carnarvonite
Posts: 8673
Date Joined: 24/07/07
Crays
Stepson rang last night on his way in from pulling their gear,over 2 tonne for a one day pull.2 days before they pulled 41 pots for 600kg untill the other decky got a scratched eyeball from a whisker and had to go to hospital,nearly a crate of crays per pot,certainly no shortage of them