Reports from local subsistence crabbers on the success of their summer efforts are mixed, with some crabbers maintaining catches are on the upswing while others say it was “the worst year ever.”
The Haines Borough and Upper Lynn Canal Fish and Game Advisory Committee has struggled in the past year to deal with complaints from subsistence crabbers that commercial crabbers are decimating the local Dungeness population.
Resident Eric Holle, who uses one pot in Mud Bay and has for many years, said crabbing got “a little bit better” by summer’s end. “It went from zero to a few, but not like it was like last year or the year before or the year before or the year before,” Holle said.
In years past, Holle recalls pulling 10 to 12 crabs every five days or so. This season, he averaged about three. “It’s kind of okay, but the glory days have not returned.”
Mark Sizemore, who drops his pot in Viking Cove, said he also saw an uptick toward the end of the summer. At the beginning of the season, Sizemore would pull the pot and get no crab. Lately, he has been averaging five crabs a pull.
“It came up blank many times early this summer, but I haven’t had a blank one in the last month or two,” Sizemore said.
Sizemore said he has noticed a fluctuation in numbers, but doesn’t think there is a stock issue. “I think the crabs are up and down, but I don’t think they’re markedly depressed right now.”
Resident Len Feldman would beg to differ. He has been dropping his pot in Portage Cove for the past 31 years and maintains the situation is dire. “This year has been consistently far and away the worst year I have ever had,” Feldman said.
Feldman experienced one six-week stretch where he caught only one crab, even though he checks his pot a couple times a week. Feldman said he is averaging much less than one crab per pull.
“If I’m lucky I caught 16 crabs since March,” he said.
Feldman attributed the recent decline in numbers to sea otters, which he thinks are decimating crab populations in southern Southeast and forcing commercial crabbers to search for their quarry farther north.
“I’m not a student of the subject, but I would think that some way to limit the pressure on the local crabbing might be in order,” Feldman said.
Resident Julia Heinz, who used one pot in Paradise Cove this year but in seasons past has dropped it near Chilkat State Park, said she has gotten less crab than in years past but doesn’t necessarily attribute her results to a stock issue.
“It does seem like there is a decrease, but I can’t say for sure,” Heinz said.
Heinz said when she went to put her pot in her usual spot near the state park, it was so full of commercial traps she didn’t think there would be room. “My particular spot that I liked was filled. I didn’t feel like I could put down a pot there,” she said.
The commercial crabbing season started June 15 and ended Aug. 8, making the season a week shorter than the maximum allowed.
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced in late June it would close the Southeast commercial crab fishery a week early after receiving catch data from the first full week of the season.
Fish and Game’s shellfish-groundfish program leader Forrest Bowers said the department projects a total harvest for the season, collects data from the first week, and then determines if the stock is healthy enough to achieve that projection.
This season the department projected a haul of 2.25 million pounds. “The first week showed we were not on track to reach that,” Bowers said.
The commercial crab fishery is managed regionwide, making it hard to zero in on data specific to Haines, Bowers said.
Bowers said he hopes to have hard harvest numbers by mid-September. “We haven’t compiled the harvest figures yet, but I heard from some fishermen in northern Southeast that they had good fishing in areas that had not been performing well in recent years,” Bowers said.
The Upper Lynn Canal Fish and Game Advisory Committee will again take up the issue of local Dungeness stocks at its meeting at 5 p.m. Sept. 13.