Coffs flooded with prawns

Shane Geary from the Fishermen’s Co-op says prawn trawlers are astounded by the size of this year’s ocean schooling prawn catches.

TREVOR VEALE

ONE positive to come from Coffs Coast’s disastrous year of floods will be found on the plate this Christmas in the form of large and plentiful prawns.

Commercial fishermen are harvesting huge hauls of school prawns, which due to their size are easily being confused for King prawns.

“In my 20 years in seafood, these catches are by far the biggest ocean schooling prawns I have seen,” Shane Geary of the Coffs Harbour Fishermen’s Co-op said.

“All the pro fishermen have put it down to one thing – the floods.

“When there’s a drought on land, there’s a drought at sea, and when there’s a flood it flows through to the ocean washing prawns and a lot of nutrients from the estuaries out to sea.”

The Coffs based trawlers are said to be pulling up a tonne a day, often close to shore, but as far north as the Gold Coast.

“Due to the size of the schoolies they are averaging 55 prawns to a kilo and selling for around $18 a kilo,” Shane said.

“Last Christmas we couldn’t keep up with demand because of the weather, but now the pro fishos are telling us the prawn fishing conditions should be right for years, after all the rain we’ve had.”