The cray catchers

BY BLAIR ENSOR

As the Chinese get set to celebrate their New Year, Marlborough's cray fishermen have all hands on deck to supply a feeding frenzy. 

On a rough day, Ward Beach on Marlborough's east coast is unforgiving. Heavy swells fuelled by high winds crash on rocky outcrops. It takes a special breed to fish these waters.

Large bulldozers and a gutsy attitude have helped brothers Trevor and Dennis Burkhart launch boats off the area's steep shingle beach for more than 35 years.

Big balls and a diehard work ethic are hallmarks of their multimillion-dollar empire, Burkhart Fisheries Ltd.

The pair arrived in Ward on Guy Fawkes' Day, 1974, leaving behind a small-scale, 50-pot crayfishing operation on the Wairarapa coast. Their father Peter, an old-school Kiwi fisherman and "hard bastard", had decided that things were getting a little too crowded, and told them in no uncertain terms to "bugger off" and find another spot to fish.

The cash-strapped lads and their cousin Lindsay Barron, who was killed in a car accident in 1991, headed south – and, with plenty of goodwill from suppliers, managed to get themselves established.

The trio slaved for 44 days through howling southerlies, and by Christmas they'd paid off most of their debts and had enough money left over to buy two new cars.

Burkhart Fisheries was established in 1976 after a paua and tail processing facility owned by Pete and Maureen Francis came up for sale in the area.

Today, the Burkhart group has about 27 per cent of the quota shares for the CRA 5 quota area, which stretches from the Waitaki River mouth to Farewell Spit.

The company's three boats and 12 to 15 owner-operated vessels catch more than 170 tonnes of crayfish for live export each year.

The Chinese, who consume about 95 per cent of their factory's produce, go crazy for the spiny red crustaceans.

Chinese New Year, celebrated this year on February 14, brings high demand, and the company's fleet is out in full force, rain, hail or shine.

As a rule of thumb, crews stop fishing when the weather is bad enough to stop the Cook Strait ferries sailing.

Trevor likens skippering a cray boat in rough seas to the rigours of being a fighter pilot. "Your mind is racing all day ... you're buzzing when you come in.

"If you're catching nothing, it's a pain in the arse, and when the sea gets bad, that's soul-destroying."

Fortunately, the weather today is kind. Misty rain and calm seas farewell us as we are launched off Ward Beach with a dozer. Dennis and his crew of two are already 95 pots into a string of 125.

His 20-year-old, eight-metre aluminium catamaran White Knight makes short work of reaching the first pot, about 100m off shore. Pots are set at depths between 4m and 40m.

Nigel Hudson, a senior crew member, snares the buoy with a gaff and feeds the rope through a hydraulic winch – a far cry from the backbreaking days of hand hauling, he says.

Nigel has been with the Burkharts for about 30 years and claims to have been sacked "hundreds of times", but there aren't too many places he would rather be than at sea, catching crays.

"It's like a marriage. You have the good days and the bad days."

Dennis' only son, 30-year-old Josh, has been part of the operation for five years. He helps to lift the pot clear of the rail, and a dozen crays are emptied on to a sorting table.

A self-confessed workaholic who doubles as an electrician, Josh has the "best job in the world" and hopes to follow in his father's footsteps.

But he has to start at the bottom, says Dennis.

Retirement is fast approaching for some of the company's old hands, so it's about looking to the future, he says.

Josh and Nigel work feverishly to size the crays before Dennis gets to the next pot.

The legal size for a female is 60 millimetres across the tail; for males, 54mm. An extra pincer and more tail flaps set the former apart.

Undersized crayfish are sent back to the briny via a chute, while those that make the grade are placed carefully in a bin.

Crayfish are "very touchy things" that need to be kept in pristine condition to survive the rigours of live export to China.

Equally important is the health of those returned to the sea. A broken limb means the cray's energy goes into growing a new one rather than tail development.

For that reason, crayfish are handled by their antennae, and pots include small modifications like plastic pipes on the tipping gate to minimise the risk of injury.

After each pot is cleared of crayfish, they are readied for another 24-hour soak. Two bait stations are filled with different fish. A "stink pot" is filled with barracouta heads and a bait bag is loaded with alfonsino, a red deep-sea fish, to lure unsuspecting, hungry crays.

At the helm, inside the cabin, Dennis guides the boat to the next drop spot. He's looking for the rocky outcrops crayfish call home.

There is a fair bit of local knowledge involved in laying the pots, but a vintage GPS plotter, bought in 1990 for about $11,000, and the latest model of echo sounder ensure they find their mark.

A big swell can make life more challenging.

"It's quite relaxed today, but when it's rough, you've really got to be on your game," says Dennis.

At the moment, the crayfish seem to be more prevalent in pots set closer to shore.

On average, about 2.5kg of legal crayfish (or six crayfish) are in each pot, which is a little light, but still well above the "trigger point" of 1.2kg where quota is shelved.

"They say when the manuka starts flowering, you bring your pots in," says Josh.

Later, Trevor, with all his wisdom, presents another school of thought on catching crays.

"At certain times of the year, it's all about sex. When they are breeding, they are not eating. Are you hungry when you're having sex? You're hungry the morning after, aren't you?"

After all Dennis' pots are hauled and reset, the mildly risky manoeuvre of retrieving his boat from the water begins.

Nigel dons his waders and is dropped in the surf back at Ward Beach. Driving the bulldozer, he battles shifting gravel to back the boat trailer into the water.

It's heart-in-mouth stuff sometimes, says Josh. On a rough day, it can take up to 40 minutes for the right set of waves to arrive to allow the boat access to the trailer.

"Trevor's got bigger balls than me," says Dennis, as he pours on the power and makes a beeline for the shore. "It's a lot like driving a race car. You've got control when you've got your foot on the gas. There's a lot of precision guesswork, but once you're committed, you're committed."

His execution is impeccable, and no sooner has the White Knight hit the top of the trailer than Nigel's on the bulldozer's accelerator, heaving the boat from the water.

The day's catch is collected by factory manager Grant Dick and transported to the Burkhart processing plant in Ward.

Crays are sorted into classes which range from As (less than 500 grams) through to Fs (more than 2.5kg). From there, it's all about getting them relaxed enough to cope with being out of the water for the 36-hour trip to market.

Initially, they are placed in stackable plastic containers, which water can pass through.

They are then purged of "all the crap in their system" in three rooms. Recycled water, set at 11 degrees Celsius, is run over stacks of crayfish before it is refiltered and re-enters the system. Room two repeats the cycle at 9C, before a state of hibernation is induced in room three by reducing the temperature from 6.8C to 5C over 10 hours.

The crays are then transferred to polystyrene shipping boxes lined with wood wool and an ice pack.

The clock is ticking.

Last season, the company secured premium prices, but with a stronger kiwi dollar this time around, prices have taken a hit. It's a volatile market which can rise or fall by up to $15 a kilogram overnight, but Trevor and Dennis are still expecting in excess of $60 during the peak demand of Chinese New Year.

Throughout the 12-month season, the company's boats fish for only about four to six months.

"You've got to control supply so that it's always under demand. It keeps the prices high all the time," Trevor says.

Fishing for short periods also keeps the pressure off stocks and ensures there are always crays available should demand increase.

"[Supplying peak demand,] we can get the same amount of money by catching half as much fish," he says. That also means less fuel, less bait, and less stress on the crays.

- The Marlborough Express