Expectations for crab season run high after results of sampling

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November 29, 2009

By Mark Freeman

Mail Tribune

Fresh Dungeness crab will start arriving in local markets and restaurants this week as Oregon's crabbing fleet begins the state's most lucrative ocean fishery.

The commercial crabbing season is set to begin Tuesday after sampling tests showed the crabs sport plenty of meat and commercial fishermen settled on a kick-off price with processors.

That means Oregon's official state crustacean can be boiling on back porches during Thursday's Civil War football game, which will determine whether Oregon or Oregon State heads to the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day.

"It'll be available, for sure, and we're really excited about that," says Brent Kenyon, owner of the Wharf Seafood Market and Eatery in west Medford, where customers have already been asking about local Dungeness.

Oregon commercial crabbers and fish processors paved the way for Tuesday's opening by agreeing last week to an initial sale price of $1.75 per pound of crab they off-load at processing plants, according to the Charleston-based Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission.

That's 15 cents per pound higher than last year, when the crabbing fleet of some 320 boats landed about 13 million pounds of crab, valued at $26 million, according to Nick Furman, the commission's executive director.

That was slightly below the 2007 haul, which fetched fishermen about $29 million, according to the commission.

This week's opening price will remain steady for the first three days.

Starting Friday, supply and demand will establish the price.

Crabbers hit the seas last Friday for the traditional "pre-soak" — the setting of pots on the ocean floor — that began at 8 a.m. Saturday, 64 hours before the first crab-laden pots are pulled just after midnight Monday.

The crab fishery off northern California, Oregon and Washington traditionally begins each Dec. 1, which also marks the start of the recreational crabbing season in the ocean. Recreational bay crabbing is open year-round.

Most crab sold now in local markets and restaurants either was frozen or shipped in from Alaska or Canada.

Oregonians have traditionally added the crack of a crab shell to their holiday traditions, in part because the fishery is at its heaviest during the party season between Christmas and New Year's Day.

"People are so oriented to having crab around the holidays," Kenyon says.

Surveys coast-wide between Oct. 18 and Nov. 12 showed good meat-recovery rates in the crabs, says Brandon Ford of the Marine Resources Program of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

A sample of crabs are tested to determine how much meat is recovered from a cooked crab, Ford says.

For Oregon, the Dungeness must average about a 25 percent recovery rate — slightly higher on the north end of the state, and slightly lower off the southern coast — for the season to open, Ford says.

That means a 2-pound cooked crab must yield at least a half-pound of meat.

This form of testing shows how well the Dungeness have rebounded from the late summer shedding of their shells, a process known as molting, Ford says.

After the molt, the crabs fill with water as their shell hardens and they grow new muscle.

The tests are not necessary to protect the fishery, Ford says. Rather, it's to protect Dungeness' image among consumers.

"That way, when they take home an Oregon Dungeness crab, they know it will be full of meat," Ford says.

Crab were also analyzed for toxins produced by harmful algal blooms and showed no toxins above alert levels.

The question mark for fishermen and marketers likely will be whether consumers hit by the sluggish economy will keep fresh crab on their holiday must-have lists.

"This year, I think people are being more frugal," says Kenyon, who started his business five years ago selling fresh crab out of a warehouse at the corner of Sage and McAndrews roads. "You might not see them coming down buying 20-30 crab at a time, but we'll see."

Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail at mfreeman@mailtribune.com.

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