Best seafood seen in over a decade hitting shelves for Christmas

Monsoonal flooding, heavy rainfall and three cyclones have swamped Queensland’s remote Gulf of Carpentaria during the past two wet seasons.

While the destructive deluge made national headlines, it has been great for commercial fishers who say it has been raining fresh caught seafood.

John Kemeridis, 73, has worked the waters of Karumba, about 600 kilometres north of Mount Isa, for almost five decades.

He said ocean fish were in abundance in the lead up to Christmas.

“There’s been more fish this year than I’ve ever seen caught,” Mr Kemeridis said.

“And there’s that much shark out there, you could nearly walk on their backs.”

Full rivers that have been well-flushed are fresh with nutrients and teeming with life, flowing straight out the mouth to the Gulf waters.

“As soon as the rain comes, the fish are there, it’s always been the way,” Mr Kemeridis said.

Spoilt for seafood choices this silly season

It is not just fresh fish adorning festive plates this year.

While Gulf anglers are reeling in whopping barramundi stocks, prawn trawlers are also overflowing.

Austral Fisheries northern prawn division operations manager Bryan Van Wyk said customers were spoilt for choice.

“I don’t think there’s ever been more options for seafood for Australians,” he said.

“Supermarkets would have probably the best quality banana prawns I’ve seen in over a decade.

“Tiger prawns [are] a premium product normally exported and [there] is really, really good quality available pretty well anywhere in Australia at moment … and mud crabbers are having good runs.”

High operational costs have hit the industry hard, but Mr Van Wyk said there had been a positive for consumers and industry alike.

“There has been a big mental switch in the way fishermen operate, so a lot more attention to detail and quality has been a massive focus,” he said.

Buy local

Seafood shops are gearing up for a busy festive season.

In north-west Queensland, customers are already lining up at fish and chip shops.

Jenny Tully owns a specialty seafood business in Mount Isa and said her pre-order list and Christmas packs were selling earlier than last year.

“Prawns and bugs are definitely your biggest seller for Christmas, and they’ve been going out the door already … people are already buying 1-kilo bags,” she said.

Ms Tully said early customer feedback on the fresh Gulf barramundi had been superb.

“The quality has been great, we’ve made recommendations and it’s always good to see people come back and let us know what they think,” she said.

Locally, Ms Tully said tiger prawn stocks far outweighed other varieties like banana and king prawns, and considering tight international tiger prawn markets, shellfish had been flying off shelves.

Flood on land, flood on sea

Queensland Seafood Industry Association president Allan Bobbermen said while it had been a bumper season, the increased cost of just about everything in the industry had created a challenging market. 

Because of this, consumers could expect to see prices range. 

“What’s setting the benchmark prices for the commercial sector is the cheap imports — you can buy Queensland Spanish mackerel for $30 a kilo, or you can get the cheap Indonesian alternative,” he said.

“People have to eat and only have [a certain] amount to spend, so they’re going for the cheaper lines.

“Buy local is always the message.”

Mr Bobbermen stood by the adage that floods did impact fishing seasons.

“You get a drought on land; you’ll get a drought in the water,” he said. 

“When you get a bit of good rain on the land, when it runs off, well, it’s going to enhance the fishery.”