Seasonal fish availability

[croaker]

I was just curious if there is any kind of season for some fish in wholesale/retail markets? For example are tangs easier to get during the summer or does it depend on the collecting location? With different collecting areas maybe weather plays more of a part in what is available or something?

Thanks and I appreciate any input on this. I was thinking about it the other day and it seems like it would make sense but I wanted to ask some of the industry people.

 

[Anonymous]

Weather makes seasons, some of which makes it imposiable to collect Funny thing is. when the most coral and fish are available (high collecting season) the trade experiences the summer duldrums (slow dowm). Winter is the big time for the market, and a bad time for storms in the Pacific.

Yes, there's major seasons to deal with for fish in general Baby tangs, rabbitfish, etc, only show up a few months out of the year.

 

[fishinchick]

There is that. One other factor is sometimes they have to wait for the populations to catch up - like blue tangs. You won't see them for a very long time and then you'll see billions of them - all 1/2 - 3/4 inches in size.

It's pretty rare to see a medium or large Blue Tang anymore ...
*sigh*

Sometimes the fish migrate or move and they have to figure out where they've moved to. I actually had an overseas supplier in Hawaii TELL me once that the area they collected Yellow Tangs from had run dry and they had to either find where they moved to or find a new spot to collect them from.

Imagine that if you will.

Also holidays overseas (see: Ramadan) slow collection. Our own stateside holidays screw things up too which slows down the amount of fish that the wholesalers get in. Some of it due to avoiding messups in shipments on the airplanes because of missed, cancelled or bumped flights. The other is that the wholesalers don't want to get stuck keeping a bunch of fish over a long holiday like Christmas where they usually close for ship outs for about a week.

Certain fish cannot be collected during spawning season. Nurse Sharks come to mind but there are a few others I can't clearly recall.

Sorry, did I say too much?