Staff from Good Fortune Bay Fisheries harvest about four tonnes a week for customers in the south and Townsville, who pay $8.50 per kg wholesale.

It looks like cool work on a sizzling day in the middle of a drought. Farm manager Rod Pelling and his team take the plunge twice a week to harvest six-month-old fish from 49 ponds year-round, unlike the season for barramundi fishing, which reopens today after a three-month break.

The fish, averaging 500g, are raised from fingerlings traditionally bought from other hatcheries. But the company is close to harvesting fish from its own breeding program at the former Seafood On line farm near Bowen.

The company was formed last June by Townsville businessman Carey Ramm, JCU aquaculture lec turer Dr Trevor Anderson and fish farmer Mark Everett, owner of the Kelso farm previously known as North Queensland Barra.

They paid $1.9 million for the fish farm at Guthalungra, northwest of Bowen, developed by Seafood Online, a public company which collapsed in March 2001 with debts of $2.5 million.

Seafood Online, listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in early 2000, raised about $17 million in the public float and aimed to sell live reef fish to Asia.

It didn't last. Since buying the hatchery Good Fortune Bay Fisheries has been working hard, however, and Dr Anderson says the first barramundi fingerlings were transferred from Guthalungra to Kelso nine weeks ago.

``We have larvae in the hatchery that we spawned ourselves from our own broodstock,'' he said. ``It takes 26 to 30 weeks from larvae to an adult fish. They are lovely fish _ they grow quickly and are robust.''

Dr Anderson, a fish physiology expert, says the company had begun a ``genetic improvement'' breeding program for broodstock, which have traditionally been bought from local fishermen.

They plan to ultimately breed a range of reef fish, including coral trout and barra cod, and to export live fish.

``The market is mostly domestic at present,'' he said. ``We sell locally, down the eastern seaboard and we are working on developing other markets.''

He says Good Fortune Bay Fisheries is the fourth-biggest operation of its kind in Australia, behind fish farms in Darwin, Innisfail and Mourilyan, and that production will expand in the next couple of years.

``Historically the farm has produced 160 tonnes to 180 tonnes a year. We project we will reach 1000 tonnes to 1200 tonnes by 2004,'' he says.

Bowen and Townsville are on the southern edge of a zone with water temperatures that enable barramundi to be grown outdoors year-round. Birds such as cormorants and water rats pose a small problem as predators.

The company employs 16 permanent staff and a number of casuals, spread between the hatchery and the Kelso farm. Their duties beyond harvesting include keeping the fish fed and emptying and cleaning the ponds. Their job description includes being able to swim.

All of the bore water on the 10ha Kelso site is recycled. The company is permitted to discharge some of the seawater used in the Guthalungra hatchery.

Staff at Kelso, officially known as fisheries technicians, follow the same harvesting routine every Tuesday and Thursday.

They manoeuvre cages, usually in 2m of water, so that they can be lifted into place by tractor. The fish are netted, graded, chilled to death at 2C and packed into 18kg cartons for transport.

``The product is chilled whole fish,'' Dr Anderson said. ``The fish are good for 10 to 14 days, but are generally in the market within two to three.''

A typical Tuesday harvest, for example, is sent south on Wednesday morning, arrives in Brisbane on Thursday morning and Sydney on Friday morning for sale in restaurants over the weekend.

The company has regular wholesale buyers in both cities and does not need to sell through fish markets. Some of its delicacies are sold at Townsville restaurants, including Mr Ramm's Naked Fish on The Strand.

``One of the things about fish farming is that you can assure customers of what they are getting,'' Dr Anderson said. ``We don't use antibiotics unless they are prescribed.''

Aquaculture is a potential growth industry around Townsville and the Burdekin, according to Labor MPs Anita Phillips and Steve Rodgers.

Ms Phillips, the Member for Thuringowa, and Mr Rodgers, Member for Burdekin, issued a joint statement recently saying State Government research was helping companies like Good Fortune Bay Fisheries increase their yields. Both recently visited the DPI Aquaculture Research Centre on Bribie Island.

``Aquaculture offers significant potential that is already being recognised in the North and the Government is committed to ensuring its development is economically sustainable,'' Ms Phillips said. She congratulated Good Fortune Bay Fisheries for their ``considerable increase'' in productivity.

Dr Anderson, who has retained a link with JCU as an adjunct lecturer, says he toyed with idea of entering the industry for some years.

``I got to the point where this opportunity was too good to turn down,'' he said.

Originally from Adelaide, he moved to Townsville in 1994 and studied the barramundi's quirky sex change mechanism, from male to female, between 1997 and 2000. He has also been involved in a Fisheries Research and Development Corporation project to improve ship-board survival of coral trout destined for the live fish market.

Yet neither he nor the Kelso fish farm manager Mr Pelling seem likely to be rushing to toss in a line for the reopening of the barra season today. Mr Pelling said he had seen too many thousands to be very excited.

Dr Anderson said he remembered enjoying fishing for broodstock. ``I used to be quite a keen fisherman but it's paled,'' he said.