Easter seafood rush won't be dampened by long weekend rain

Newcastle commercial fishers are expecting a busy couple of days at their retail outlets as religious tradition boosts the demand for seafoods.

The Easter period, when many Christians abstain from eating meat, provides a sales spike for the industry that is second only to the Christmas festive season.

Robert Gauta from the Newcastle Fishermen's Co-operative said fresh fish stock is in good supply, and there will be plenty of variety.

He said he expects prawns to be the big seller.

"Well, we try and do our best to get as much local produce as we can here," he said.

The Easter period, when many Christians abstain from eating meat, provides a sales spike for the industry that is second only to the Christmas festive season. (Picture : Destination Port Stephens)

"And when I say local, I mean off the wharf in Newcastle and Nelson Bay and Bungwahl and Tea Gardens - our co-op goes that far and goes down to Tacoma so we've got a pretty wide area.

"At the moment the local fleet is getting plenty of fresh king prawns, and there's plenty of snapper and there's lobster and crabs.

"No there is certainly no shortage in Newcastle at the moment."

The weather bureau is predicting the possibility of showers across much of the Hunter over the Easter break.

But Mr Gauta said the co-op will have no trouble meeting holiday demand.

"Look, a fisherman is never happy with the catch he's getting, they always want more, but certainly we've seen that the species that they catch locally haven't been any worse.

"In fact, the catch rates have been quite steady.

"No, we are pretty lucky.

"There is always something firing, you know, either the Hunter River prawns, the Myall Lake prawns or, there's some beautiful extra large mullet coming in from Port Stephens area."

Source :  ABC Rural    April 1st 2015