Today marks the opening of the 160th Commercial Crab Season in San Francisco.
The catch tends to grow and shrink in cycles and predictions are that this years catch may be light. Nonetheless boats could be returning with their delicious cargo as early as Wednesday, November 18 and within hours the famous San Franciscan staple should be available in the steam pots of Fisherman's Wharf, saltwater tanks throughout Chinatown fish markets and restaurant menus all over The City.
The Dungeness crab takes its name from Dungeness Bay, east of Port Angeles on the northern tip of the Olympic Peninsula, in North-Western Washington State. The crab lives in eel-grass beds and muddy to sandy bottoms, from low inter-tidal zones to depths of more than 600 ft from the Aleutian Islands in Alaska, to south of San Francisco. The best California crabbing is said to be between Eureka and Crescent City about 350 miles north of San Francisco.
Though female Dungeness crabs can lay up to 2.5 million eggs and live up to at least 6 years, it takes three to four years for a larval crab to grow to a size suitable for legal harvest. This crab is the largest edible crab from Alaska to California. Mature crabs measure as much as 25 cm (10in) in some areas off the coast of Washington, but typically are under 20 cm (8 in). Dungeness crabs are carnivores that feed on more than 40 different species including small clams, oysters, fish, shrimp and worms. According to the California Department of Fish and Game, no Dungeness crab less than six and one quarter (6 ¼) inches in breadth and no female Dungeness crab may be kept.
Boats can be equipped with 100-300 crab traps or pots. Each 90 pound trap is typically baited with squid, mackerel or both then lowered to the ocean floor and marked with buoys. With a good harvest thousands of pounds of crabs may be unloaded when boats with the first catches of the season arrive at San Francisco’s Pier 45.
