Tanner crab season closes

Tanner crab. (Photo by Paul Quesnell / Flickr)

Kayla Desroches/KMXT

The tanner crab fishery wrapped up last week.

Nat Nichols, Alaska Department of Fish and Game area management biologist for the Groundfish, Shellfish & Dive Fisheries, says the opening lasted roughly four days, which is about what they expected.

And as far participation goes, he says a total of 55 vessels registered, 43 of those on the east side and 12 on the southwest side.

“That’s a bit higher than we’ve seen in previous season with comparable GHLs, and I think that has to do with cod fishing being slow and just general enthusiasm for tanner crab fishing being that we haven’t had a season in four years.”

It’s the first time tanner has been open for crabbing in the Kodiak area since 2013, and it’s a derby, which means the vessels fished until they reached this year’s guideline harvest level of 400,000 pounds. Nichols says they pulled in about 422,000 pounds, a little over the GHL.

They keep track via radio.

Nichols explains the vessels can only lift their gear between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m., and they touch base with managers after the close of the day.

“So then we call all the vessels on the radio and ask for a report for the day and all we’re looking for is the location, where you are, how many pots you lifted, and how many legal crab you retained, and that’s voluntary reporting, and we got excellent reporting out of the fleet.”

He says the majority of the vessels reported, and managers calculate weight based on data about the average crab size.

Nichols says crab reach maturity every five years at 5 and half inches, and deckhands need to measure the crab to make sure they’re big enough to keep.

“We had reports in the fleet that we were in fact dong a lot of measuring and that they were seeing lots and lots of crab in the pots that were just sublegal. That is a good sign for next year. Meaning that if we’ve got lot of crab in the water that are just sublegal, next year some of those will be legal, and they may contribute to a fishery next year.”

It’s no sure thing that there will be a fishery in 2019, but Nichols says that’s to be determined following summer surveys.

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