“Stand on the beach and wait for a tinnie”, they said, “Not too close, a huge crocodile patrols”. Wait. What? A croc? I thought I was going to be a prawn fisherman for the night, not live bait. It’s 34°C, and I’m standing barefoot on the banks of the Northern Territory’s Groote Eylandt in a Black Sabbath tee and jeans rolled up to my knees. I barely notice the Top End torching my back for fear of something snappy sampling my albino blubber. But before Big Bruce the croc can drag me whimpering into the watering hole, a silver object skims across the waves towards me.

“Let’s make it quick, the lizards ain’t small,” says Taylor, engineer of the 22m Gnaraloo Prawn Trawler. It’s one of 10 in the Austral fleet harvesting MSC certified sustainable Skull Island Tiger Prawns – distinguished by tiger stripes, purple tails, distinct savoury flavour, and of course, sheer size. In fact the entire Northern Prawn Fishery – some 52 vessels – trawling the Gulf of Carpentaria are certified. The fishery runs from Cape York to the Kimberleys covering 880,000 square kilometres, but less than 12 per cent is fished.

Skipper Brad Allen greets me with a firm grip. Sunglasses hide his eyes but his bronzed face bears lines that tell many a fish tale. “We’ve had a big night, 1000kg of tigers,” he explains. “I’m gonna sleep. I’ll answer any questions you have tonight.” He wakes first mate Guy to take the trawler north. Everyone else on board is asleep. You see, this crew of five trawl all night (6pm-8am). They grab moments of shuteye while it’s light.

It’s around 8pm when we start the first of three trawls. Brad emerges from his quarters. The control room is full of monitors with historical fishing data, the lie of the seabed, the path of the Gnaraloo, and that of its fleet. “A lot is gut instinct to be honest, but you get to know these waters,” Brad says. The trawler looks like a black gull with its 16 metre metal wings outstretched, housing four nets in total.

When Brad lets the main winch out, heavy metal ‘otter’ boards on ropes drag the nets into the deep blue on either side of the vessel. “We trawl on the bottom for prawns, that’s where they live.” A footrope drags near the bottom to disturb the prawns, who generally bury themselves in mud. The action causes them to jump. As the nets are pulled, the prawns and bycatch accumulate in the rear of the net. The vessel is moving at a very slow speed, around 7km per hour, so it takes about 1.5 hours.

“Winch up,” comes the voice of the skipper. The crew jump from their slumber, don gumboots and aprons. They stand on the deck wiping sleep from their eyes as the winch clangs, pulling in nets brimming with sea life. It hovers over the main deck before the bounty is released into the small pool of water.

Vanessa, the cook, and Taylor stand either side of a conveyer sorting prawns from bycatch. Everything from puffer fish, squid, eel and blue swimmer crabs slide back into the sea. The prawns plunge into a water bath solution to put them to sleep. In the processing room Guy and deckhand Blair grade the prawns
– seven grades in total from tiny (22g) to monster Skull Island (100g+). “Look at this one,” says Vanessa. It’s larger than both her hands together. Taylor puts it on the scales – “140 grams!”

Once graded the prawns are boxed and placed in the boat’s hull. It snap freezes prawns at -40°C to capture their freshness. They’ll do this entire process three to four times a night for four months, every day. Motherships circumnavigate the gulf to top up fuel and collect prawns allowing the Gnaraloo to stay off dry land. By law they are only permitted to trawl tigers from August 1 until December 1. The expansive seagrass beds, tidal movements and abundance of food mean the tiger prawns grow fast, and big. So, they can catch as much as they want.

The crew seem so at home out on in the deep blue, but even Brad concedes the weather is tolling.

“It could be pissing down and blowing 20 knots. The boat could be rocking side to side. The weather gets cranky up here, but you still fish.”

This team works in wet and choppy conditions from dusk ‘til dawn to give you the best possible sustainable seafood