October 24, 2024 — The Bering Sea’s biggest and most lucrative crab fisheries opened last week, and so far, fishing is looking good.
“Fishing has been very good for the [Bristol Bay red king crab] fleet this season and the crab delivered so far has been of high quality — new shell, large size, good meat-fill,” said Alaska Department of Fish and Game Area Management Biologist Ethan Nichols.
As of Wednesday afternoon, about 29% of the total allowable catch (TAC), for the Bristol Bay red king crab fishery had been harvested, according to Nichols. He said so far, reports from captains and from observer catch reports show signs of productive fishing.
Nichols said 14 vessels had landed about 680,000 pounds of king crab. The average weight is 6.84 pounds, and the catch rate is 35 legal males per pot. Both of those numbers are up slightly from last year.
The state set the harvest level at about 2.3 million pounds earlier this month, just 7% more than last year’s cap. The fishery was shut down for the two years prior, due to low abundance.
Former Unalaska mayor and fisheries advisor Frank Kelty said recent surveys show that king crab stocks are looking better this year, but the fishery still has room to grow.
“This fishery is still in a depressed state,” Kelty said. “But you know, we saw improvement in some of the mature males and the six-and-a-half legal size crab, but still not a big surge in the juveniles and pre-recruits moving into the fishery yet.”