Fishing conditions 'terrific' as Easter seafood demand surges

With deckhand Riley Hicks, the 60-year-old veteran commercial fisherman - who has been working on a trawler for 44 years - unloaded the catch from his vessel Maxie B at the Commercial Fishermen's Co-operative Newcastle on Wednesday afternoon, in preparation for the usual surge in demand around the holiday weekend.

"Fortunately, this year the weather's been really good," he told the Newcastle Herald.

"Some years, you might only get a couple of days' work in but this year's been terrific. We've worked all up to Easter, which makes a difference - you can have an Easter where you can't get to sea and it's useless to us."

The second generation skipper has cleaned some fish for his family for the long weekend and said he planned to pick up some fresh local king prawns, which he said were "beautiful" at the moment.

Robert Gauta, general manager of the co-op at Newcastle, said customers were already waiting outside the shop when the Herald spoke with him early on Thursday morning.

Mr Gauta said cost of living pressures had affected business recently, but many people continued to buy seafood for "the big days".

"People's disposable income is definitely less, so they're not buying their kilo of prawns on Thursday on a quiet week," he said.

"But when they see Christmas and Easter, they've got to have their seafood."

Mr Gauta expected trade to be up tenfold on Thursday and Good Friday, compared with the average day's trade.

Tuna steaks and salmon fillets were popular, and some nice bream, barramundi, and mahi mahi had come in.

Mr Gauta said "the old staples" - prawns, oysters, crab and lobster - were also selling well.

"We measure in kilos most of the time, but today we measure in tonnes," he said.

"Just keeping stock in the window is a challenge in itself. It goes out faster than we can bring it in. It's going to be fresh all day, that's what we thrive on."