Thank you so much for your question.
It depends, and it varies across fisheries. I can speak about the prawn fishery specifically. With regard to sourcing crew for that fishery, when you're working on a freezer boat.... Packing on a freezer boat is a skill set, and there's a limited number of people who possess the skill of packing for the prawn fishery.
As far as preparation ahead of the season goes, preparation typically lasts about two weeks. Obviously, there's work all around the off-season that goes into maintaining your boat and things like that, but in terms of preparation for the actual fishery, it's roughly two weeks long. Getting official notice only a few days before an opening date makes it very difficult to plan around when you have two weeks of work to do first.