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April 29, 2011

May 1st starts the beginning of new seasons and the end of old seasons in the fishing world.

First is Flounder, the season for flounder, is over in most areas of the mid-Atlantic and most of what will be coming in will be in very reduced volumes and higher prices are sure to follow. Even though the quota has been increased dramatically the season will be declared over on May 1, 2011 for the spring season and will the fall season will start around October.

Amberjack, Red Snapper, and Black Grouper along the Atlantic coast will be open on May 1st. Expect to have some boats in probably by the 2nd or 3rd of May as they have anxiously been awaiting that day to start fishing. Prices will be high to start and should fall after that. Mexican and Domestic Gulf Grouper should start showing up again as boats are returning from their first trip after the Easter break. By mid-week next week we should see a lot of grouper in inventory with the hope of perhaps lower prices.

There’s good news and bad news about Halibut. The good news is it doesn’t seem like the price is going to rise this upcoming week. The bad news is that it doesn’t seem like prices will be coming down this week. For the upcoming holiday; Mother’s Day weekend; we foresee having decent quantities, but prices will not be inexpensive.

We should have a good inventory of Corvina, Farm-raised Redfish and more Baja Redfish.

We are still getting a lot of Lake Pontchartrain Drum, which is a great value and will hopefully continue to be sold for the next 30 days.


We should have a good supply of Tuna and Swordfish as boats come in from the full moon and the holiday.


With Salmon, there should be plenty. Unfortunately prices will not come down just yet. We should have a decent inventory of Scottish, Norwegian, Canadian, and United States farm-raised Salmon. There is good news for wild salmon as the Troll King Salmon season starts. May 1st starts off the Oregon and Washington coast and word is that there are plenty of fish in the water. In addition, we should have some Big Spring Columbia River Kings from the Sunday opener here by Tuesday.

We should have more Alaskan Cod as well as Dover Sole for the beginning of the week and hopefully more as the week progresses.

The beginning of April opened Scallop season in the Eastern United States, but because of increased European demand for scallops and the weakening of the dollar, the price of scallops with the new season is actually going up instead of down. The earthquake in Japan destroyed a lot of the cold storage inventories and the ensuing tsunamis ruined a lot of scallop beds in the Hokkaido Peninsula so the demand in that part of the world for our big scallops is way, way up.

We are getting rave reviews about our Viking Village day boat ultra dry Sea Scallops. We will have u/10’s for Monday and hope to have more as well as u/12’s by Wednesday.

Lobster should be steady and we’re hoping that by the end of the week it may even drop as Canada starts to get out and fish and U.S. boats start to cycle in.

Crabmeat will be about the same as the past week.

Mussels, Oysters and such will be in high demand so order as early as you possibly can or at least give us an indication of your needs. One problem is because of the cold weather, the severe amount of rain and lack of sunshine in the Pacific Northwest.

Mediterranean Mussels that are grown by growers in the Northwest are way behind season and they are not harvesting them for the next 3-4 weeks until the water warms up and they have more growth.

There should be some Stone Crabs coming in next week, as the boats begin to pick up their last trips of the season which closes May 15th.

Softshell Crabs are going to be few and far between because every time there is warm weather and crabs are caught, it turns cooler very quickly and the shed seems to disappear.

One bit of bright news is that Live Crawfish and Crawfish Tailmeat seem to be coming down almost daily and the availability is way up. *We do pre-orders only on live crawfish.

We should have some Cooked Crawfish pre-ordered in next week and we should definitely have three or four shipments next week of crawfish tail meat.

We are going to run an extraordinary special all of next week on Painted Hills tenderloins if you buy a full case of 35 lbs for $12.99/lb. Ask your sales person for details and to place an order.

We are also going to run specials on 6-bone Ready Veal Chops from La Quebequois, as well as, Block-Ready Veal Shortloins from Marcho Farms. In addition we will have All-Natural, Hormone Free Striploins from Montana Ranch and Certified Berkshire Pork Black Forest Hams from Eden Farms for your Mother’s Day brunch!