Crab is here but prices are higher

Beginning Jan. 5, from the Sonoma/Mendocino county line to the U.S./Mexico border — which includes San Mateo County — fishers have been allowed out on the waters to catch crab, albeit with a 50% trap reduction.

Now, visitors and locals alike can buy fresh crab off the boat at Pillar Point, which was selling for $12 a pound on Thursday. Crab can also be purchased fresh or boiled and cleaned at the Pelagic Fish Market, located within the harbor.

“We are so appreciative of locals and people actually coming here to buy from us,” Mishelle Westendorf, fish market owner of the Pelagic Restaurant Group, said. “It just brings a sense of community.”

At Pelagic — which also owns the next-door Ketch Harbor Pub — crab is now being purchased only from local fishers, an exciting change from the higher prices of shipping in crab from further-away areas.

Ian Pogue, who purchases crab from local fishers and cleans and cracks it on demand at the fish market, said the season opening has been long awaited by locals.

“There is definitely a community feel revolving around the Dungeness,” he said. “Before our season opened, every day and almost everyone who came in, [said] ‘So when’s crab season? When’s crab season opening up?’”

Off-the-boat prices are higher than they’ve been in years past due in large part to the meager crab populations fishers are seeing in the water combined with pot reductions, Cody Rodebaugh, captain of Cody’s Coastal Catch, said.

“It hasn’t been that good of a start,” he said. “It’s been terrible.”

The lack of a hearty adult crab population in comparison to previous years could simply be cyclical, Tim Obert, a commercial fisher who sits on a number of fishing advisory boards, said.

“In my personal opinion, I just think that we’re in one of those weird years where the crabs are all juveniles, and we’re not seeing a big adult commercial crab volume,” he said. “We’re hoping that’s the case because it seems that it’s considerably slower than what we expected.”

But without the promise of a guaranteed full-length salmon season — which typically comes after crab, but has been shuttered or closed entirely in recent years — fishers are increasingly concerned with their finances.

“We didn’t have any salmon,” Rodebaugh said. “[Crab] was the most lucrative part of the year still, because we didn’t have any salmon.”

Additionally, this season alone, prices have risen to $14 a pound at points, a sharp incline from the $8 to $9 a pound of past years. So while customers are excited to be buying crab once again, they aren’t as thrilled about how much the Dungeness is costing.

“They’re happy — they are not happy about the price,” Rodebaugh said. “But that’s what happens when we’re not catching very many of them. Otherwise, there’s no reason to go — it’s not even going to pay for the fuel.”

Once a holiday fixture, crabbing season has been delayed to a post-New Year’s start time in recent years, largely due to the risk of whale entanglements, Ryan Bartling, an environmental scientist supervisor at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, said previously.

The late start is frustrating for fishers and buyers alike, Ashe said, and remains a financial burden for the industry. He hopes that fishers can work with scientists and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to come up with crabbing strategies that will prove less dangerous for whale populations.

“I love having seafood during that time of year. It’s sad people can’t get Dungeness,” he said. “I think there are ways — it just takes a lot of time.”

On the buyer’s end, a demand for crab undoubtedly remains — the fish market sold around 400 crabs in 32 hours, Westendorf said. As fishers are having to go further out in the water to bring Dungeness in, she encouraged the purchase of local harvest — either live off the boat, or prepared and ready from the fish market.

“You walk home, and literally, they’re table-ready for you,” she said.

To maintain the beloved tradition of fresh-caught California Dungeness, Obert warned that fishers needed more leeway.

“We really need to update our data and our science and make it more allowable for fishermen to fish later in the season, maybe fish earlier,” he said. “Have a little more opportunity, even if there is risk there.”