The 2024 golden king crab fishery for the East Central management area -which includes the waters around Haines – closed after only four days when area fishermen caught more crab than the season’s total guideline harvest level set for all of Southeast.
Last year, fishermen reportedly observed a golden king crab population boom in parts of Southeast, but the ability to harvest crab was constrained by harvest levels based on earlier years when the population was very low.
Meetings in 2023 between the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and industry resulted in the agency significantly increasing opportunity by resetting the guideline harvest level (GHL) for three areas in Registration Area A (Southeast Alaska).
East Central saw the steepest increase with the 2023 GHL of 13,255 pounds increasing more than tenfold to 150,000 pounds in 2024.
The 2024 fishery opened on Feb. 17 with a total GHL of 272,500 pounds for areas in Registration Area A.
Most of the seven management areas have now closed, with the exception of Lower Chatham Strait, Southern, and North Stephens Passage.
Data from the fishery is still being entered and verified by Fish and Game, but from what is currently known, the agency said “it’s a success.”
“The East Central area did extremely well,” said Region I Lead Shellfish Biologist Adam Messmer. “We closed it after four days of fishing, similar to last year … and in those four days, we estimated they caught around 296,000 [pounds].”
Twenty-two vessels fished in the East Central management area.
The harvest results indicate the area’s golden king crab population is similarly robust to last year. Monitoring the catch per unit effort (CPUE) is part of how managers assess the crab population in a given area.
“The CPUE [for East Central in 2024] is very similar to last year and we had about three times the amount of participation,” said Messmer. “We reset it to 150 [thousand pounds], you know, it was the highest GHL in the region. So I think that gained a lot of interest.”
Just four days after the season started, the commercial golden king crab fishery in the East Central management area closed by emergency order on Feb. 21 when its GHL of 150,000 pounds was expected to be met.
Last year, the same fishery in East Central also closed by emergency order after just four days when its GHL of 13,255 pounds was met.
Fish and Game reset those harvest levels in three management areas in Southeast for the 2024 fishery – at Icy Strait and Mid-Chatham Strait, in addition to the East Central management area.
The effort increased and the CPUE remained high in management areas where the GHL was reset to a higher level within Registration Area A.
“Pretty much the whole fleet was rather happy this year,” said Messmer.
The commercial golden king crab fishery in the Mid-Chatham Strait management area closed on March 18 when the harvest was expected to reach the 30,000 pound GHL.
Last year, the GHL was 8,250 for the area.
Fish and Game estimates nine vessels caught 47,000 pounds of crab in the Mid-Chatham Strait area.
The fishery in the Icy Strait management area closed on March 21 by emergency order when it was expected to reach its 35,000 pound GHL.
Last year, the GHL was 11,138 lb for the management area.
This year, 10 vessels harvested an estimated 40,000 pounds of golden king crab in the Icy Strait management area.
The fourth management area that has closed is the Northern area, which closed on March 4. The 20 vessels fishing the area caught an estimated 21,000 pounds of golden king crab.
The GHL for that area was 12,000 pounds.
Messmer said “it was a little bit over what we were shooting for,” however the emergency order closure was postponed by a day due to “a freak weather pattern that came through when we were planning on closing… freezing spray and 80 mile an hour wind so, we let that one run a little bit longer.”
He speculates part of the higher harvest can be attributed to the crab pots being left in the water for longer than anticipated.
Prior to the 2024 fishery, as another response to the conversations between the industry and the management, ADFG developed two survey program projects involving volunteers from the fleet -unofficially referred to as the golden king crab juvenile pre-recruit and recruit monitoring program- to provide improved data in the absence of Fish and Game’s golden king crab onboard observer program, which ended years ago due to a funding cut.
However, the program did not come to fruition this year due to a lack of participation by the fleet.
The pilot program was planned to take place in the East Central area, but “due to the fact that everybody thought that the fishery was gonna go very quickly, we had zero takers on it,” said Messmer.
“We had a lot of interest in other areas … the Northern and Icy Strait area, so we might shift gears and go that direction next year,” he added.