Food Lorists: Seasonality of Fish, Crustaceans and Molluscs

Seasonality of Fish, Crustaceans and Molluscs

Posted by Yann_Chef on at 6:02 p.m.

In a previous post called "why is there seasons for fish and crustaceans" label question on food, I wrote about the reasons behind fish and crustaceans seasonality. Now I will make a short list of fish, molluscs and crustaceans and when they are available. This is important to know the seasonality of seafood as their price varies a lot whether there are in seasons or not. Trust me, I run the kitchen of a fish restaurant for a good while and my cost would fluctuate a lot depending on the time of year for a particular fish or crustacean.

A small precision here. The seasonality chart below is based on the fishing zone of the North Atlantic, West Atlantic, North Sea, English Channel, Irish Sea, Norwegian Sea and Mediterranean Sea only.

Round White Fish

Cod : Available from June until March. Low season April May. Nowadays the availability of cod depend mainly on the strict quotas which regulate the marine stock.

Cod Roe : Only available in February and March. Low season January. Unavailable from April until December.

Haddock : In season from June until February. Low season end of March until the beginning of May.

Whiting : Available from June until May. Low season March until May.

White Pollock (Blossom) : Available from May until February. Less fishing in March and April.

Black Pollock (Coley) : Available in June until January. Less fishing is made between February and May.

Hake : Available from June until February. Low season March until May.

Ling : Nearly available all year around with a small period of shortage in August.

Conger Eel : Available from spring until the beginning of the winter months.

John Dory : This fish is available all year around. Now the market can depend on some fluctuations because of the weather during winter months and the demand on the market around Christmas.

Monkfish/ Angler fish : Available all year around. Quite difficult to find around Christmas and the New Year due to a n increase in the demand.

Grey Mullet : Available from August until February. Low season March until July with a peak in May.

Gurnard : Available from July until February. Low season March until June with a peak in April and May.

Sea bass : Available all year around. Extensive farming in Greece, France, Portugal and Turkey offer a non stop supply all over Europe. In some European countries sea bass fishing is restricted or banned like in Ireland, but in general wild sea bass season starts around April, peaks in July and August and ends around October.

Dogfish : Available all year around.

Ray : Available all year around.

Shark : Available all year around.

Flat White Fish

Flounders : The main fishing season starts in July to end in February. The peak of the low season is April .

White Sole/ Witch : Available from June until February. Low season March until May.

Dab : Available from September until March. Becomes rare between April and August.

Brill : Available from July and February. Low season March until June with a peak in April and May.

Turbot : Here I am talking about wild turbot. Turbot farming is one of the most successful fish farming adventure after salmon. It has contributed to make turbot available all year around and more affordable. So, wild turbot is available from April until February but it is still a quite rare fish.

Halibut : Available all year around.

Plaice : Available from June until December. The low season starts in January and peaks in February, March and April.

Oil Rich Fish

Mackerel : Mackerel is available all year around on our markets, but the peak of the season for this fish is late August until the end of September. It may become scarce during winter months because of the weather conditions.

Herring : Available all year around with a time of scarcity around the end of March and April.

Tuna : Available all year around for the yellow fin and mako tuna. Due to the increasing rarity of the blue fin tuna fishing vessels have to follow very restrictive period of fishing that depend on the country. Here in Ireland, tuna fishing starts in the late summer for a period varying between 2 to 6 weeks.

Swordfish : Available all year along though imports. Now, Irish fishermen start fishing for swordfish at the end of the summer.

Sardines : Available from June until August. Due to a drop in the stocks of sardines the authorities have put a serious clamp down onto sardine fishing, especially

Wild salmon : The commercial fishing of salmon comes under Ministerial order. In Ireland it is usually June, July sometimes May.

Molluscs

Periwinkle : All year around.

Whelk : All year around.

Rope-culture mussels : Available all year around, but can come in short supply during spring.

Bottom mussels : from July until March. Low season peaks in May.

Cockles : Available from September until June.

Clams : Available from September until June.

Scallops : all year around. In some part of Europe the fishing of scallops is restricted, in the bay of St Brieuc and the bay of Brest in Brittany in France for example.

Oyster Gigas : The golden rule for oysters is that they are at their best the months finishing by a R such as September, November...

Oyster Native : This concerns only Irish native oysters. They are only available from September until April. It is not aloud to sale native oysters from May until August.

Ormer/Abalone : The fishing of abalone is very strictly protected in Europe and Australia. It is very scarce and is listed as an endangered species in some parts of the World. Here in Europe, it is available from October until April and limited to 12 molluscs per fisherman, per day. It is, also, aloud to fish ormer 3 days previous a full moon and 3 after.

Squid : All year around.

Crustaceans

Dublin Bay Prawns/ Langoustine : All year around. Some shortages happen around Christmas and New Year due to an increase in the demand. And just a small precision about D.B.Prawns. THEY DON'T ALL COME FROM THE DUBLIN BAY, as a lot of customer would argue with me when I tell them that the D.B Prawns that I use come from Cork. This is the English name for the "Nephrops norvegicus", Noway lobster.It is also known as langoustine french word that roughly mean small lobster, scampi plural of their Italian name scampo.

Shrimp : All year along.

Lobster : All year around. But there is some short period of time when the lobster grows therefor need to change its shell. It is called the molting. There is only one way to know when this event happens is to ask the lobsterman!

Crayfish : All year around.

Brown crab : All year around.

Spider crab : All year around. It is mainly fished in late December and January.