A fleet of outsider vessels is reportedly shipping south from Oregon and Washington right now. They will drop pots alongside locals when the season opens on Saturday. Local fishermen, bracing themselves for the storm of competition, say all they can do to salvage a scrap of profit from Dungeness crab is stick together on price negotiations with processors and fend for themselves when the annual “derby” begins.
“We’re still playing that shotgun Olympic start,” said Duncan MacLean, director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations. “It’s not good for the ma and pa operations around here where guys are apt to take more risk than they should.”
  
(Use arrows above to view more photos) |
“If Washington boats come down they’re gonna go fishing, and we might have to (despite poor conditions),” said Frank Inferrera, a Santa Cruz fisherman who has been crabbing from Pillar Point Harbor for more than 20 years. “We won’t have a choice. That’s the sad part. Those guys don’t have anything else to do and nothing to lose.”
Crab season breaks later in Oregon and Washington than in California, prompting Northwest fishing crews with means to swoop in on big boats and bag as much California crab as they can handle and sell for a much lower price.
That’s how locals get scooped each year. Out-of-towners sail down in 100-foot vessels, drop thousands of pots in the first 24 hours of the season, land the catch locally, sell it at a reduced price to San Francisco buyers, and then head home in time for another season opening. They leave in their wake a decimated fishery, angry locals and even, crabbers say, fishing gear not worth collecting.
“It’s pretty depressing really,” Geoff Bettencourt said of the recurring situation. He’s a fourth-generation fisherman at Pillar Point Harbor and he expects this year’s crab race to end quicker than ever.
In 2007, fishermen saw 80 percent of the crab population hauled out in the first two weeks. Bettencourt says he predicts that same amount will go in the first two days this year.
“I think we’ll pretty much wipe ’em out in three days with the pressure that’s here,” he said. “When 70,000 traps hit the water it’ll all just get sucked up. This season will be very, very, very short.”
“Everyone’s trying to keep up with the Joneses,” MacLean said.
MacLean annually works to unionize crabbers at Pillar Point Harbor, Bodega Bay and San Francisco to “make sure everyone is on the same page” regarding a price. This year, fishermen are asking for $2.25 per pound — 50 cents less than they received last year. Some expect a counteroffer from processors as low as $1.65. “That’s not gonna put much food on the table around here,” MacLean said.
A mobilization of politically minded California fishermen, including Bettencourt and MacLean, has been pushing for legislative protection of the state fishery for three years. Their pleas for regulation were unanswered until this year, when the governor signed a bill for the “development and administration of a Dungeness crab task force … to review and evaluate Dungeness crab management measures.” The task force would prepare recommendations over the course of 2009 and present them to state regulatory agencies by the beginning of 2010.
One of the things crabbers are vying for is a limit on crab pots per vessel. That could reduce the incentive for out-of-towners to make the effort in California and provide for a longer, more productive crab season for a greater number of local fishermen.
Meanwhile, crabbers at Pillar Point Harbor are scrambling to arm themselves for another rough year of fierce competition at sea.
“It’s a perfect storm of all fishing,” Bettencourt said. “Low price, no crab and the highest out-of-town effort.”
w