In extraordinary footage reminiscent of a David Attenborough documentary, row upon row of spiney antennae peek out from under reef and rock ledges and undulate with the current.
“It’s now mid-summer and the sun is shining at full strength. The increasing warmth is the cue for the western rock lobster, or panulirus cygnus, to start on its long journey,” the naturalist might say of the usual pattern of migration from our State’s favourite shellfish.
But there’s nothing mundane about what we’re witnessing this summer, with recreational fisherman Shaun Wieffering describing scenes along our coastline as a “crayfish supermarket” in the lead up to Christmas.
“That video that I put on TikTok was from the end of November when they were fully in flight — that was only about 5km offshore and there would have literally been thousands of crayfish under that ledge,” he said.
“But this year, just with how hot the weather was looking, we decided to put our (lobster) pots in a couple of weeks earlier and from the first day we were pulling them, we were getting our limit with two pots and we’ve got six in the water.
“Last Friday, we threw over 30 back which were berried and tarred (lobsters in the mating cycle). It’s clear the fishery is extremely healthy, with plenty of crays to be brought to life soon.”
With the typical migration of the “whites” — the moulting western rock lobster nicknamed for the soft, pale new carapace they sport during the time — fishers in Perth’s northern suburbs such as Duncraig’s Mr Wieffering see the action first, with the crustaceans walking their way to the southern coast a couple of weeks later.
And evidently, that’s still the case this year, with Shoalwater sparky and free diver Mitchell McLelland describing near-identical scenes.
“It’s been pretty bloody good. There are spots I have that are full of smaller crays but I went to one of my big cray holes one week and by the very next week a couple of other big ones had already moved in — that usually takes a month or two,” he said.
“We’ve really noticed that in the shallow reefs, like in 5m of water, every little ledge has a bunch of crays under them, it’s crazy.
“And one of the spots that I have, the octopus were also having fun as there was a bunch of carcasses everywhere.”
The 25-year-old says he is ready for Christmas Day with 20 of the spikey shellfish sitting pretty in his freezer, revealing he snagged a 2.8kg “red” or resident rock lobster a couple of weekends ago, with a mate from the local dive club snaring a monster 3.6kg version.
Commercial fishers all but confirmed comparable observations from their day-to-day.
“The season’s going good. In fact, inshore it’s probably one of the best,” Ricky Dipane said from his vessel the Bonny Kay.
“But a lot of the crays have already moved offshore by the look of it. Normally you get them until Christmas time but they seemed to have moved off earlier this year as they also started a bit earlier.”
Mr Dipane, who traverses Fremantle to Two Rocks in search of the prized crustaceans, ventured the warmer waters might have something to do with the early migration.
“It might be because of the temperature but who knows, they’re funny animals the crays,” he said.
Fremantle’s Fedele Camarda, who skippers Neptune III for his family’s business, concurred with the early departure of stock in the shallows.
“That’s gonna make it a challenge to be honest with you,” he said.
“But that’s the nature of it as well — even when crays are good, there might be bad weather or something that affects our ability to bring in the orders that have been made, so we’ll just try and we’ll see how we go and do the best we can.”
A quick check-in with Fisheries WA verified the western rock lobster fishery was in great nick and the 10-legged creature retained the title of most-caught species Statewide.
“There have been good numbers of lobster available for capture so far this year,” Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development’s offshore crustaceans principal research scientist Simon de Lestang said.
“A combination of last year’s white lobsters not migrating in large numbers out of the shallows mixing with this year’s white lobsters has resulted in great catches for many recreational fishers.”
But he was also was quick to substantiate what both recreational and commercial fishers were reporting — that the crays were trekking into deeper waters earlier than usual.
“The key factor impacting when white lobsters start to move is water temperature,” Dr de Lestang explained. “This starts in August/September when lobsters begin the process towards moulting from red to a white shell. The warmer it is, the earlier they start this moulting process.
“Then if water temperatures continue to increase and remain warm, they will move off from the shallows earlier.
“Last year the water temperatures were quite cold in November 2022 (18.9C), this year they are warmer (20.7C) than the 10-year average (19.9C).
“This warmer temperature results in better catch rates of lobsters, so this year is much better for catches than last year at this time.
“Catches should remain strong all season, and if the warm summer continues most of the large mature females moult earlier (February vs March), which always increases catches around areas such as Rottnest Island.”
With all things pointing to Christmas menus featuring sizeable WA rock lobster at their heart, this Saturday’s pre-Chrissy (December 23) Back of Boat sales day is expected to be one thing: hectic.
It’s been a full year since the Western Rock Lobster Council, which manages the BoB mechanism, launched online orders on behalf of commercial fishers and highly recommended pre-orders to avoid disappointment.
“There will be five locations — Cervantes, Hillarys, Fremantle, Port Coogee and Mandurah — and we’re getting at least one boat to go into these locations and they will be there at different times during the day,” Natalia Perez Haedo from WRL said.
“And people can in most of those cases pre-order.”
Mandurah’s Peter Stanich says he has plenty of interest already for the big day.
“The sizes are good and they’re bigger than what you’re gonna get in the shop for sure, so they’re getting value for money,” he said.
“We’ve got over 200 orders already and it seems to be getting bigger as it gets closer to the day and, at the end of the day, it’s still a wild animal that you have to catch, it’s not just there to collect, so we will probably stay out overnight just to fill those orders.”
Dongara fisher Bruce Cockman will dock his vessel Holdfast at Hillarys Boat Harbour and has already secured more than 500 orders, with about 50 more still trickling through each day.
“We can hold a lot on our boat,” he said. “I’m not cutting it off but I put a 1500 limit on the 600g ones because they do get a bit harder to catch,” he said.
“But we’re pretty confident (fulfilling the orders).”
While BoB sales and increased quotas allow the commercial fishers to stay in business, many are still feeling the effects of China slapping trade sanctions on Australian products at the height of a diplomatic feud in 2020.
“The price we’re getting today is what we were getting 20 years ago, so the only thing that is saving it is the catches — we’ve got quite a lot of quota, big boats and the volume for us is working,” Mr Cockman said.
“The flipside is I’ve got to catch it now while they’re crawling. It’s still making money but it’s not like it was; the basic price has halved since China’s left.
“Even if China comes back, we’ve been out of market for nearly three-and-a-half years and when you leave a market, other people jump in and it gets filled, so we might have issues getting back in or we might never.”
Trade Minister Don Farrell said he expected the last remaining Chinese ban would be lifted next year after tariffs on wine and biosecurity blocks on meat were eased.
“We started, when we came to office, with something like $20b worth of trade impediments with China,” Senator Farrell told Sky News.
“Bit by bit, we’ve whittled that down and really the major product now that has not been let back into China is lobster, and I’ve raised this issue now five times with my Chinese counterpart and I’m hoping that sometime in the near future that final product will be allowed back in.”