Crab season still slow, prices high.
Officials expected to finally open up North Coast area to fishing next month
This year was supposed to offer crab lovers relief after several frustrating winters of on-again, off-again crab catching along the California coast.
But while crab fishers are hauling up the tasty crustaceans along the Central Coast, an ongoing closure of the fishery north of Sonoma County has spiked prices and limited supply, leaving some seafood shelves devoid of Dungeness, retailers said.
“There’s not much crab now,” said T. Tujore, a manager at Neves Fish Market in Santa Clara, which had only about a dozen live ones for $9.99 a pound in the tank. “The price right now is really high because there’s not much of it — supply and demand. But people are still buying it.”
Diablo Foods in Lafayette had Dungeness, but for $15.99 a pound.
They were $13.99 a pound at Lunardi’s in San Jose. Jerry Pieracci, shopping with a friend on Friday, didn’t flinch at the price, but after asking the grocer to weigh one, felt the crabs aren’t big enough yet and passed.
“If I want to eat them I’ll get them but they’re a little too small,” said Pieracci, 86, of San Jose.
Noah Oppenheim, director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, said the coast north of Sonoma County has remained closed to crab fishing because the crabs there have been underweight.
“We want to bring a quality product to market, it needs to be up to snuff,” Oppenheim said. “In a lot of cases when we have major closures like this there are major market impacts.”
Even major supermarkets are affected. There were no Dungeness at all Friday at the Lucky su-
permarket in Santa Clara.
“We are seeing a limited supply of Dungeness crabs at a higher price,” said Victoria Castro, spokeswoman for the Save Mart Companies, parent company of Lucky Supermarkets. “We do expect this to change once the season is in full bloom. Dungeness Crab is a staple to many of our customers’ holiday meals, and we do see a higher demand during the holiday months.”
The Central Coast commercial crab fishery from Bodega Bay through San Francisco and Monterey opened Nov. 15 to great anticipation. Three years ago the season had to be delayed until March after state fishery officials detected toxic levels of domoic acid in crabs. The acid is a byproduct of algal blooms that accumulates in shellfish, sardines and anchovies and can cause amnesic shellfish poisoning.
That closure hurt what Oppenheim has called “one of the most important and lucrative small-scale fisheries left in California,” worth up to $60 million to the local economy with some 550 crab fishers off the coast, including dozens going in and out of Pillar Point Harbor in Half Moon Bay.
There were two boats selling crab at that harbor this week, and Oppenheim said the catch has been good.
“I’ve eaten quite a lot of crabs myself this season and they’ve been excellent,” he said, “some of the best crabs folks have seen in terms of quality.”
He suggested that those having trouble finding crab just look around.
“They can go to the next market down the road and they’ll find crab,” Oppenheim said. “It’s out there.”
The North Coast commercial crab fishery was supposed to open Dec. 1. State officials on Dec. 6 delayed the opening until at least the end of December after samples showed the
crabs there were not ready to harvest.
Oppenheim said the crabs along the Central Coast molted earlier in the season, allowing them to mature to marketable size and weight earlier.
Pillar Point Harbor’s acting harbormaster Mike Williams said state officials should announce the week of Christmas whether the North Coast fishery will open in January. He expects that will be the decision, and that crabs will become more available and affordable once that happens.
“Generally the majority of the crab is caught from the North Coast and that’s what helps alleviate the high prices with the abundance,” Williams said.
For now, consumers can call the harbor’s hotline at 650-726-8724, option 3, or check out the Fishline app to check availability.
“It’s not the best of seasons,” Williams said, “but not the worst.”