The Bering Sea snow crab fishery reopened in mid-October after a three-year closure due to a drastic decline in crab populations. The first catch of the season was delivered on January 15th, with fishermen reporting good numbers of large crabs in the northern parts of the fishing grounds. Despite a relatively low catch rate per pot at the start of the season, experts expect it to increase as fishermen focus on productive areas.
Earlier this month, commercial snow crab s started hitting Unalaska’s docks again for the first time in nearly three years.
“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.” 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.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.
BERING SEA SNOW CRAB FISHERY REOPENING CATCH
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