January 9, 2017 — SANTA CRUZ , Calif — As a labor strike continues to dry dock their colleagues to the north, many Monterey Bay Dungeness crab fishers are pulling predominantly empty pots, despite letting them soak for as much as two weeks.
“You run a whole string and pull a bunch of blanks, you’re going to start getting eggy,” said Justin Barry, 38, a crewmember on the commercial crabber Five Stars, which is docked at the Santa Cruz Small Craft Harbor. “The whole thing’s belly up. We’re trying to convince our captain not to call it a season at this point.”
To make matters worse, the market price of Dungeness crab remains relatively low — from $3 to $3.25 a pound — despite the crustacean’s scarcity.
“There’s just not a whole lot of crab to buy right now,” said Hans Haveman, co-owner of H&H Fish. “We were paying as much as $5 a pound around New Year’s. I’m not even sure what I’d pay if someone brought me crab right now. I’d have to think about that.”
Vincent Pham, 40, owns two crab boats in the Santa Cruz Harbor, both named Five Stars. This week, he looked out at the wind chop whipping the ocean outside the harbor mouth.
“It’s not cheap to go out and pull empty crab pots,” said Pham. “You have to know when to say when.”
Many recreational crabbers have already pulled the plug.