Commercial fishing for red and blue king crab will be closed again this year for Southeast Alaska.
Warmer water in Southeast breeds larger king crab than other parts of the state. Southeast red kings can grow up to 24 pounds with a 5-foot leg span. But unlike places such as Bristol Bay, Southeast’s population has not been abundant in recent years.
There have been only two commercial openings in the last 10 years — one in 2005 and one in 2011. That last opening saw a price of $10.66 per pound. The harvest that year was worth nearly $1.9 million at the docks. In 2005, it was $5.31 a pound.
Even though the population is nowhere near the right size for a commercial fishery, there’s reason to believe that the crabs are seeing slow, consistent growth.
Adam Messmer is the Assistant Shellfish Manager for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. He says the mature biomass increased from last season, meaning more crabs are approaching the size to be caught commercially. There are also more crabs that are already large enough to be caught.
“We had a pretty good jump in legal crab this year compared to the last 20 years,” Messmer said. “It was a pretty good jump percentage-wise across Southeast.”
Back in the 1990s and early 2000s there were commercial openings for red and blue King crab nearly every year in Southeast. And that’s something that the managers are working towards again.
The state has been keeping consistent records for Southeast king crab for over 30 years. They’ve used survey results from their staff and from commercial fishermen themselves to document the population.
