INSIDE
Crabbing season opens as illegal fishing picks up from Canadians

By Meg Olson & Tara Nelson

Crabbing season for Marine Area 7 North, which includes Blaine, Birch Bay and Point Roberts opened August 17, with some changes intended to stretch out the recreational harvest of dungeness crab.

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife shellfish biologist Steve Burton said crabbers using any catch method from pots to hand picking can take only five crabs this year, instead of six. Harvesting is limited to male, hard-shell crabs six and one quarter inches in width or larger. Harvest days have been cut back to Wednesday through Saturday, with the exception of Labor Day weekend when crabbing is allowed all weekend long.

“It’s an effort to extend the season,” Burton said. When crabbing closes September 30 he said a re-opening was still possible if recreational crabbers haven’t caught their share as determined by catch card records.

“There will be an assessment at that time and hopefully targets haven’t been reached,” her said. “My goal has been to keep the 7 North area open longer.”

Harvesting crab illegally, either out of season, female, soft-shelled or undersize crab, however, can lead to a $100 fine for the first crab and $25 per crab beyond that, according to Russ Mullins, sergeant with the Department of Fish and Wildlife, North Puget Sound marine division.
If an individual has more than double the limit of illegal crab the base fine goes up to $500. Mullins said enforcement efforts were aimed at keeping people from damaging the resource, such as one individual apprehended with 43 female crab in a bucket. “We put them back,” Mullins said. “That’s a major impact on the resource.”

Mullins also said a major impact on the crab available to U.S. crabbers was encroachment by Canadian crabbers. Working with the Canadian Fisheries and Oceans department Mullins said they have confiscated as many as 800 sets of illegal gear in the U.S. waters of Boundary Bay in one day.

Mullins – with the help of the U.S. Border Patrol, the U.S. Coast Guard – pulled in about 400 illegal crab pots near the border August 24 and said he expects another 200 today. Each crab pot is worth approximately $100 with the ropes and buoys, but many fishers continue to violate because of existing economic incentives.
Mullins said with an average of 500 illegal crab pots pulling in five, two-pound crabs per day, with an average selling price of $2, this adds up to a whopping $10,000 per day, lost by Washington state commercial, tribal and recreational fishers.

Most illegal crabbers who are caught are brought to trial in the United States charged with commercial fishing without a (U.S.) license and unlawful commercial fishing in a closed area, gross misdemeanors or a felonies carrying fines of up to $15,000 for the skipper with additional fines of as much as $5,000 per deckhand.

Canadian authorities are working with the Department of Fish and Wildlife to apprehend fishers who repeatedly and knowingly violate U.S. fishing and crabbing laws, Mullins said. He said most offenders return to the United States to appear in court because they want to be able to visit the country.

“You’d think they wouldn’t come back but they do,” he said. “A lot of them have family here and they don’t want to get jammed up at the border.”

Mullins suggested that recreational crabbers might want to call the Lummi tribal fishing hotline at 384-2252 before they set their pots so as not to get tangled in a tribal fishery. Another piece of advice from Birch Bay State Park manager Ted Morris is to treat crab gently when sorting them and returning young and female crabs to the water. He asks crab fishers not to throw their rejected crabs back into the water because it can rupture the crab’s air bladder. Instead, he suggests placing them gently back into the water.