Dungeness season open for fall fishery
- Daily Sitka Sentinel
- 4 days ago
- 2 min read
Daily Sitka Sentinel staff
Dungeness crab fishing is back on for a full fall season that began Wednesday and extends through Nov. 30, although Alaska Department of Fish and Game harvest projections show that Southeast Alaska fishermen might not achieve the harvest threshold for a full season.
The commercial Dungeness fishery opened for 55 days this summer, beginning June 15 and closing Aug. 9, six days earlier than usual.
Across Southeast, 162 Dungeness fishery permit-holders this summer harvested 567,839 crab totaling 1,180,494 pounds. Participation and harvest were relatively low, but fishermen earned a good average price of $4.06 per pound, up from an average of $3.13 for last season, and $2.12 for season prior, per ADF&G data.
In August, state fishery managers cut short the usual, two-month-long summer season by six days as the harvest was projected to be below the department’s 2.25-million-pound threshold for opening a full summer season.
By state regulation, if the department projects that the entire year’s harvest of Dungeness crab will be more than 1.5 million pounds, but less than 2.25 million pounds, the fall Dungeness season opens for just 30 days beginning Oct. 1.
But crabbers are getting a full, two-month-long fall season because managers found that fishermen caught and released many soft-shell Dungeness during the first week of fishing this summer, contributing to the lower-than-anticipated harvest.
“Based on data from port sampling, fish tickets, and interviews with permit holders, the department has determined that soft-shelled crab not retained during the first week of the season were a contributing factor in failing to meet the 2.25-million-pound harvest projection threshold,” ADF&G said in an announcement this fall.
State regulation provides that the fall Dungeness fishery may occur with the standard two-month duration when harvest projections fail to meet the threshold due to the high occurrence of soft-shelled crabs in early summer.
Newly molted crabs have soft shells that are not favorable for most markets; handling of soft-shell crab also results in increased discard mortality. ADF&G asks fishermen to consult with their buyers on shell hardness criteria before harvesting crab.
Dungeness fishing is fair game this fall throughout most of the region, except for some closed waters near Angoon, Tenakee Springs, Hoonah, Pelican, Gustavus, Juneau and Haines, and communities in southern Southeast Alaska.
Fishermen who lose crab pots should report their lost gear to their local Alaska Wildlife Trooper office, ADF&G said.
• This article was originally published by the Daily Sitka Sentinel.
