Local fisherman Bruce Collis hooks award
CORNER Inlet fisherman, Bruce Collis, has reeled in an award for Australia’s best producer at the prestigious Delicious Produce Awards.
Top Australian chefs including Neil Perry, Maggie Beer and Alla Wolf-Tasker gathered in Sydney to deliver the award.
The high flying achievement was in recognition of both Bruce’s sustainable approach to fishing and the quality of the King George whiting, southern garfish and rock flathead he supplies to big name restaurants.
A few of these elite eateries includes Crown, Supernormal Cumulus and Rockpool Bar and Grill in Melbourne and Sydney’s Saint Peters and Rosetta.
The sustainable approach that hooked the attention of judges was the uncommon, environmentally friendly method of fishing named seine netting that Bruce and his “loyal team” use.
This technique uses dip nets to lift fish out of the water to minimise handling and allows young and unwanted species to be returned to the waters.
“It’s a unique, world class, live wild catch fishery. So that means all the by-catch all go back alive,” Bruce said.
From there, desired fish are promptly placed into large containers of ice and saltwater to keep them fresh.
Catches are then processed at Bruce’s factory.
“They are picked up at 5pm on the same day and are in Crown by that night,” Bruce said.
“The catch is then taken to Melbourne Airport and flown priority to Sydney.”
On a good day, Bruce said he and his team could be reeling in 400-500 kilos worth of fish.
According to the second generation fisherman, the pristine, quality fish he captures is a result of the remoteness of Corner Inlet and its lack of industrial presence on the surrounding coastline.
“I’ve learnt my trade off a lot of people here: there is a lot of good, smart fisherman here. I can’t take any credit for it,” Bruce said.
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Posted by Tayla Kershaw on Sep 6 2019. Filed under Featured, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
