A small fleet is out on the water, fetching around $3/lb for snow crab
KUCB | By Maggie Nelson
January 28, 2025
Published January 28, 2025 at 4:23 PM AKST
Earlier this month, commercial snow crabs started hitting Unalaska’s docks again, for the first time in nearly three years.
The Bering Sea snow crab fishery reopened in mid-October, after billions of the crab disappeared and the fishery was shut down in October 2022. This season’s first catch was delivered on Jan. 15. Opilio, or snow crab, is generally fished in the new year and into the early spring. The season runs through May.
Alaska Department of Fish and Game Area Management Biologist Ethan Nichols said nine vessels are actively participating in the Bering Sea commercial fishery.
“The fleet is just getting started, for the most part,” Nichols said. “Fishing so far — the reports from the grounds — there seems to be good numbers of nice, new shell, large snow crab on the far northern portions of the grounds.”
Nichols said right now the number of keepers per pot, also known as CPUE or catch per unit effort, is somewhat low coming in at 134, but that will increase as the season progresses.
“That’s only coming from a handful of our first deliveries, and that includes some prospecting by vessels early on in the season,” he said. “So far, the highest CPUEs are being seen on the northern portion of the grounds. And as vessels get more dialed in on those hot spots or those productive areas of fishing, they’ll be coming with full loads of crab that are more reflective of the hot spots on the grounds.”
Fishermen were allotted about 4.72 million pounds of snow crab this season. That’s pretty low compared to historic catch limits. About 17% of that had been harvested as of Friday morning.
Unalaska – Photo credit: Timistravels
Normally, some of that harvest would be processed in St. Paul. But this year, everything is coming to Unalaska because Trident didn’t open their plant to process crab on the Pribilof Island, which is the only processor in the northern region.
Nichols said it sounds like processing the extra crab in Unalaska is going smoothly. He said it’s made some of their work at Fish and Game a little easier too.
“It’s just made our sampling a little bit more streamlined, just really in terms of travel logistics this time of year, not having to battle getting in and out of the Pribilofs with weather and flight availability and all that,” Nichols said.
He said he expects to see a total of about 15 vessels participate in this year’s fishery. Four vessels have already finished up and checked out of the fishery. Fish ticket prices are coming in at around $3 per pound, according to Nichols.
Meanwhile, eight vessels are registered for the Western Bering Sea Tanner crab fishery. Less than 10% of that total harvest has been caught so far. Nichols said they expect more vessels to start targeting bairdi, or Tanner crab, as they finish up with snow crab. Harvesters have until the end of March to catch the Tanner crabs.
