Fishermen head out as Dungeness crab season gets underway
years After of several on-again- frustrating off-again crab catching operations along the California coast, fisherman were optimistic about hauling in a good catch as the 2018 commercial Dungeness crab season opened Thursday.
It was three years ago that the highly anticipated season had to be delayed until March after state fishery officials detected toxic levels of domoic acid in crabs. In addition, fishermen have had to contend with scattered delays and lousy weather.
This year, things are looking good: The weather is supposed to cooperate with mild temperatures and gentle winds. And while domoic acid, a byproduct of algal blooms, was found recently off the North Coast, prompting the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to delay the start of the recreational crab fishing north of Patrick’s Point in Humboldt County, the commercial season stretching south of Bodega Head all the way to the
Mexico border has gotten a green light.
“The fishermen are out there now,” said Noah Oppenheim, director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, after the crews had placed their crab pots in the water before the season’s formal opening at 12:01 a.m. Thursday. The fishermen were expected to be “pulling in their gear and bringing the crab” in as early as midday Thursday.
“We anticipate a pretty good harvest this year and certainly expect there’ll be enough crab for anyone who wants it for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve,” said Oppenheim, adding that tests for domoic acid, with a few minor exceptions in the northern part of the state, “have come up clean.”
But not everyone was sure of that. Pillar Point deputy harbormaster Jacob Walding said Thursday morning that it’s too early to tell what sort of season is in the offing.
“We don’t know at this point if it’ll be a good season,” he said, adding that based on what recreational fisherman have brought in so far, “It’ll probably be a slow season with a limited amount of crab — but we just don’t know yet.”
Walding said he expected the first hauls to start coming into the harbor Thursday evening “and we should have crab for sale on the dock in the next day or so and certainly over the weekend.”
While the crab- fishing area extends far to the southern part of California, Oppenheim says most of the crab is fished off Monterey and other harbors including Half Moon Bay.
“There are plenty of fishermen out there right now with others as far south as Avila,” a small seaside community just north of Pismo Beach. “This is one of the most important and lucrative small- scale fisheries left in California,” he said, with a total of 550 fishermen looking for crab this week, including dozens going in and out of Pillar Point Harbor in Half Moon Bay.
And it’s along those docks that the first fishermen were tying up Thursday, offloading their bounty into holding tanks before the crab are delivered to fish markets and restaurants in the Bay Area and beyond.
The all- clear call for fishermen this year was a wel- come relief after unhealthy levels of domoic acid were found in different parts of the state’s coastal waters. The acid, which can cause amnesic shellfish poisoning, is a byproduct of algae and accumulates in different kinds of shellfish as well as sardines and anchovies. When ingested, the acid can trigger a variety of symptoms in humans, including diarrhea and abdominal cramps. It also can result in breathing difficulties and — in more serious cases — even death.
This season, local fishermen aren’t too concerned about the toxin, since levels are currently below the 30- parts- per- million threshold in which the fish is considered unsafe to eat.
The other key question: How much crab is out there waiting to be caught? Commercial fishermen are allowed to take crabs that are at least 6¼ inches in breadth, and recreational fisherman can catch 10 crabs a day each day of the season, which ends in June.
While the recreational season was delayed last month for one portion of Northern California, from Patrick’s Point in Humboldt County north to the California- Oregon state line, the waters south of there have been open to fishermen. State officials declared the commercial crab season could begin on its traditional start day of Nov. 15 and that they would continue testing Dungeness throughout the season to determine whether the crabs are safe to eat.
As dockworkers awaited the arrival of the first commercial fisherman in Pillar Point, the anticipation levels up and down the supply chain were high. Kaleb Klee, a fishmonger at Princeton Seafoods at Pillar Point, said everything seemed to be lining up for a decent — and healthy — Dungeness crab season.
“The fishermen are out there setting up their pots before the season kicks off and they’ll start bringing in the crab” as early as Thursday morning, Klee said Wednesday afternoon. “They have their tanks at the harbor where they’ll hold the crabs live, then go back out for more.”
Klee said he’s seen a lot of the crab already caught in recent weeks by recreational fishermen: “They look pretty good, so I’m hopeful this will be a good commercial season.”
Oppenheim’s fishermen organization said “commercial crabbers can expect to harvest 20 to 40 million pounds of male Dungeness crabs” this season, adding that no females are harvested and that “fishing professionals are careful to follow legal restrictions regarding the size and weight of males to ensure they’re able to reproduce replenish their populations.”
“In California alone,” Oppenheim said, “Dungeness crab fishing is worth $50$60 million to the local economy. Losing this economic driver would mean disaster to fishing families and would be an irreplaceable loss to Bay Area culture. We can’t allow that to happen, and that’s why we’re taking a stand now.”