Sweet, succulent spot prawns are back at local fish counters now that the weeks-long fishery has opened.
“We go from zero to 60 immediately. People come in and everybody looks forward to it,” says Anne Best, co-owner of Oak Bay Seafood, 2024 Oak Bay Ave. The family business has its own vessels working off northern Vancouver Island to pull in traps filled with spot prawns.
The commercial fishery opened May 10. Fisheries and Oceans Canada monitors the catch to evaluate the health of the stock. As of last Friday, most of the coast was open, with three new minor closures.
These reddish-orange prawns with their distinctive white spots are the largest in B.C. waters. Females can be 23 centimetres in length.
People love their “texture and the flavour,” said Steven Richards, Pacific Prawn Fishermen’s Association executive director.
More than 200 commercial fishermen are on the water, he said. “There are a lot of fishermen on Vancouver Island.”
In 2016, the total landed value of the commercial prawn and shrimp fishery was estimated at $16.1 million, a federal Fisheries Department report said. The Strait of Georgia has historically been one of the main fishing grounds for prawns.
About 70 per cent of the catch is exported, but spot prawns have increasingly become popular with B.C. residents and sales have been rising in this province. Recreational anglers also trap prawns.
Initial figures from last year’s catch indicate that 1,128.6 tonnes were hauled in, said Laurie Convey, resource management biologist with the Fisheries Department in Nanaimo. Annual catches can vary considerably.
The commercial fishery usually closes by the end of June.
Spot prawns live four years, spending the first part of their lives as males and mating with females. Then they change sex to become females, who mate with younger males.
A female produces an average of 3,900 eggs. They carry eggs in the winter, releasing them as larvae in the spring, Convey said.
