Commercial crabbing season opened last week after three delays meant to reduce the risk of whale entanglement. Now, nine weeks after the season’s original start date, the three men in Bolinas who fish crab commercially are facing tumultuous weather and fickle tides—but new changes in regulations may act as a silver lining.
New Year’s Eve marked the official beginning of the season after crabbers were given 64 hours to lay their traps. But for Bolinas fishermen, low tides deny egress from the lagoon’s silty bowl, and last weekend’s combination of tides and rough ocean waters prevented them from launching until Dec. 29. Since then, tides have allowed just about an hour a day for crabbing, said Don Murch, a longtime fisherman who sells his catch at the Gospel Flat Farm Stand.
Bolinas, one of the only tidal-bound harbors in the Bay Area, faces these issues each year, said Rob Knowles, another commercial crabber in town. Mr. Knowles said much of the area available for traps is claimed by San Franciscans who aren’t bound by tides. But this season, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife imposed a 50 percent trap reduction on all commercial vessels south of Mendocino County and north of the Mexican border. The new regulation was an effort to reduce whale entanglement, and it is driving many large-scale crabbers to head north to Crescent City, where the catch has been bountiful and no such trap constraints exist.
Mr. Murch said that in years past, a delay in laying traps would have been crippling, but that given the trap reduction and subsequent exodus north, there is more availability out at sea. “When guys in big boats come out here, fish the place out and sell everything to people who cook it, freeze it and sell it all year long, it makes things hard for the little guy,” Mr. Murch said.
Now his biggest hurdles are the typically slower market for crab after the holiday season and the stormy weather. “I’m worried about the safety of me and my crew,” said Mr. Murch, who gets help from Austin Humphries, a 35-year-old Bolinas resident. “I’m very happy to have his help. He’s young and strong.”
Mr. Murch is usually accompanied by his son, Mickey, but Mickey is in Mexico enjoying the Pacific’s sunnier side. Mr. Murch said his son will soon return home to help with crabbing and farming. But now that the holidays are over, the need for crab has diminished, and both he and Mr. Knowles heavily rely on crabbing for their income.
“It’s the hardest time I’ve ever had,” Mr. Murch said.