The rain is misting over Woodley Island Marina’s Dock B, where the Jenna Lee is moored. Kristen Pinto, in a bright yellow slicker, pulls three Dungeness crabs from the trickling bin on the deck of the adjacent home-built pontoon boat from which the Pinto family sells to the public as Jenna Lee’s Seafood.
“It’s been a little slower,” she says, lifting a half shrug and noting the strained economy and higher price of crab — $8 per pound — have kept some away. “They’re a nice size and all, but it adds up. A nice size crab can be $20.”
The jump in price from last year has been a boon for crab fishers who’ve been stuck selling their hard-won catches for less and less over shortened seasons in recent years.
The cost isn’t enough to deter Marney and Jason Kubala, who’ve walked down the ramp to the Jenna Lee with a cooler. “We wanna support local. We’ve been coming to these guys for close to 10 years,” says Jason. He wrestles a bit to lift a wriggling specimen for a photo, as Pinto cheerily photobombs with her arms up in the background. The $52 total doesn’t faze them; the delicacy, they agree, is well worth it.
Kristen’s father Kevin Pinto has been fishing for 47 years, since he was 18. He’s fished salmon, bottom fish and pink shrimp over the years, but says since salmon fishing has been “in turmoil,” he feels lucky to be able to survive on crab. Most days during the commercial season he’s at the boat by 6 a.m. and back to the dock by 4 p.m., weather and sea conditions permitting. But even when the sea is rough, he says, “You can fish pretty tough if you have to,” depending on how the risk and reward balance out. “Think of being held upside down and trying to work with somebody swinging you around … you’re on a moving platform,” he says with a hint of humor in his voice. “It takes a certain type of person to do it.”
Pinto’s Jenna Lee has a 400-pot capacity, but due to incidents of large whale entanglements, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife has imposed a 25-percent gear reduction on the North Coast, as well as larger reductions elsewhere. This comes on top of a delayed opening of the commercial Dungeness crab season, which didn’t start until Jan. 15 in Humboldt County.
Pinto recalls people coming to the dock to buy crab for Christmas dinner and is sad to see late commercial season openings make that holiday meal difficult unless you know someone who fishes recreationally. “The tradition is probably being lost.”
But this season is seeing some bright spots for local fishers. Humboldt Fisherman’s Marketing Association President Harrison Ibach says leasing a pair of new hoists — large mechanical arms that lift the catch from fishing boats onto the dock — from the city of Eureka has made a tremendous difference. Previously, three main seafood processing companies — Pacific Seafood, Caito Fisheries and South Bend Products — dominated the market, he explains. But the new hoists allowed the association to bring in other buyers that, while smaller, were willing to pay more for crab. New buyers Fathom Seafood and Southern Cal Seafood have, he says, increased competition and helped the association to negotiate a higher price per pound. By the second day of the season, Ibach says the price went from $5.75 to $6.25. It continued to climb to $6.50, then $6.75 and now sits at $7, which is what processors are generally paying at the docks.
“I think that the price needs to be this high because it’s a low-volume year; there’s not that many crabs around,” he says. While some fishers are happily pulling up more and better crabs than expected, he sees low numbers coming out up and down the coast, up to Oregon, and out of Canada and Alaska.
It’s a stark contrast to last year, when Ibach recalls crab prices started around $3.25 and reached $5.50 toward the end of the season. The previous year hovered at $2 and change. The price fluctuation has a tremendous impact on the fishers operating the more than 60 boats the association represents. “It’s a lot of families because it’s not just the captain of the boat, it’s the families of all the crew members,” he says. “It affects a lot of lives.”
“It’s a hard business to be in,” continues Ibach, even aside from the dangerous nature of crab fishing. The December-through-July seasons, he notes, are no longer something fishers can rely on. “We don’t know when it’s gonna start and we don’t know when it’s gonna come to a screeching halt.” The crab are going fast, he says, and it’s getting tougher to catch them.
Dahlia Lerma Ragland, who fishes on the Marlee Rose, captained by Brendan Sams, says her family is dependent on fishing. A decade ago, she fell in love with fishing on a boat trip and soon got an offer to work on a salmon boat. “I never would have imagined I would be a fisherman,” she says with a hearty laugh. During rough weather, tossed sideways and feeling like you don’t know which way is up, it can get scary, she says, laughing again. “We know we’re living!” But after a break while having kids, she’s thrilled to be back on the boat, which docks in Trinidad.
The Marlee Rose sells its catch retail to folks at the dock, via its website, to Murphy’s Markets and to processor Ocean Gold. “We’re getting a good price,” says Lerma Ragland. “It started at $5.75 [and it’s] being retro-ed to $6.25.” She sees the increased competition among buyers as a big part of the increased price. Some fishers around her are calling it a trifecta, given the good price, the good weather and the availability of good crab. “We’re getting some pounds in there,” she says, though she expects a natural fluctuation of both amount and location. “Sometimes you lay your traps down and they’re full, and sometimes, womp-wah, you put ’em down in the wrong place.”
“There’s been a pretty good catch but it’s no record,” says Kevin Pinto, who expects an average year in terms of the pounds of crab he’ll haul up. While the $7 per pound he’s getting from South Bend Products is good news, he has some concerns about pricing out retail buyers. “Right now, we only have a $1 margin,” he says, noting the retail price is $8, “which is ridiculous, because I can’t find it in my heart to charge more.” “We’ve been trying to hold that because of sticker shock.”
The crab themselves are good quality this year, their shells packed with sweet, briny, pearl white meat. Lerma Ragland just made crab enchiladas for her family and the boat’s crew. Pinto and Ibach, too, have been enjoying some of their own catches with butter, stuffed in ravioli, tossed with pasta and pressed into crab cakes.
But all three prefer it in its simplest form, boiled — sometimes in seawater scooped off the side of the boat — cracked open and eaten with one’s hands and nothing else.
Jennifer Fumiko Cahill (she/her) is the arts and features editor at the Journal. Reach her at (707) 442-1400, extension 320, or jennifer@northcoastjournal.com. Follow her on Bluesky @JFumikoCahill.
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This article appears in The Humboldt County Fair is at a Crossroads.
