The oyster season usually runs from March 1 to August 31.
While for many years his company was able to meet its quota earlier, he believed this year his boats would head out to Foveaux Strait until the last possible day.
"The weather has been the worst of my time here — 28 years.
"I think in the month of April we only had about 10 fishing days ... Some of the boats have probably had maybe 60-70 fishing days so far ... we had well less than 50% of the days out fishing, just because of the weather.
"And if you look at next week’s weather forecast, it’s a yes — we will be there probably until the 31st."
Environment challenges and the parasite Bonamia exitiosa endemic in the fishery had caused an increased level of mortality in the oyster beds this season and put pressure on the quality and volume of the delicacies, he said.
However, it was not only the oyster industry that was feeling the pinch, he said.
"We know the condition of the oysters, the plumpness of them hasn’t been great — it’s been like that for the last probably three seasons, but we know it’s a wild fishery.
"But it’s not just us. You can see in the media that the snapper in the North Island had problems with condition, the blue cod down here having problems with numbers and condition, the crayfish — I think they might have come right now, but through the summer they were having problems with them ... and there’s not too much we can do about it, really."
Mr Wright said the nature of the industry was notoriously cyclical — and he had been in tough seasons before.
A survey was carried out this year to understand the impact of Bonamia exitiosa in the oysters and it showed it had doubled this year when compared with the 2023 season, he said.
"And the intensity of the infection of the oysters that were still alive, but were showing signs of the disease, was probably more than double what it was last year, so that makes sense that there’s less oysters out there."
The cost of living crisis was also contributing to a difficult season, as many restaurants across the country were struggling, he said.
"It’s been really hard marketing oysters as well. We know that people are keeping their purse strings closed a bit."
Mr Wright said all of those reasons made him describe this year’s season as a challenging one.
Some operators had already hit their quotas, while others decided not to fish at all for their oysters this year, he said.
"We are probably, percentage-wise, probably 10% or 15% behind where we were last year ... and we did probably 80% of our quota.
"So it has been tough, but this is the nature of the industry and we just keep doing what we can."
