May 14, 2019 — Bering Sea crabbers saw upticks in crab recruits during a good fishery for the 2018-19 season, along with strong prices.
The crab season opens in mid-October for red king crab, tanners and snow crab (opilio), and while fishing goes fast for red kings in order to fill orders for year-end markets in Japan, the fleet typically drops pots for the other species in January.
Crabbers said they saw strong showings of younger crab poised to enter the three fisheries. Only male crabs of a certain size can be retained for sale.
“For Bristol Bay red king crab, the reports were very positive,” said veteran crabber Jake Jacobsen, director of the Inter-Cooperative Exchange, which represents the majority of Bering Sea crabbers. “I got a lot of reports from people saying they saw a lot of recruitment around, a lot of females and small crab, but some boats didn’t see any. So it depended on where you were. Overall, the catch seemed to go pretty fast and the fishing was good. It wasn’t scratchy at all for most of the boats.”
The price also was good. The red king crab fetched $10.33 per pound, up from $9.20 last season, for a catch of 4.3 million pounds.