This is just one post in the Other Oceans & Beaches Stories Category

Fishers give up on crab season

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 18, 2008 at 1:27 pm

From the Contra Costa Times:

Crab fishers headed home Monday downcast and with few Dungeness crabs to show for their frenzied efforts during the season opener last weekend, putting a strain on the Thanksgiving market for the delicate treat. At this time in a normal year, hundreds of boats would be scooping up thousands of adult crabs around the Farallon Islands in the two-week period before the wily invertebrates start skittering farther westward toward the continental shelf.

This year, local fishers say the ocean is so barren of adult crabs it reminds them of the days before the advent of the Clean Water Act.

Some crabbers are already packing up their gear. The big boats that came down from Oregon and
other northern harbors to get an early jump on the Central California crab season have already left. Judging by the number of crabs they saw on the way home, it looks as though the crabs are missing up north, too.

“We’ve been averaging one crab a pot. I’ve never seen it this bad,” said Bill Webb, sounding dazed Monday. Like many other fishers at Pillar Point Harbor near Half Moon Bay, Webb fishes for salmon and received a compensation check from the federal government after the unprecedented collapse of the Chinook salmon fishery last spring. But that money only covered half the price Webb was getting for his fish, and he, like dozens of other Bay Area fishers, was staking his survival on a successful crab season. “If this season ends up being a bust, I think a lot of us aren’t going to be able to survive. “