Crab Fishing in Alaska

Tuesday, 17 April 2007

Crab fishing is an important industry in Alaska. Back in the 1980s, when king crab fishing was at its height, some boat captains earn as much as $150,000 a season! Despite the high pay that crab fishing commands, it is still one of the most dangerous jobs around.

For many years, the waters of Alaska were a crab fisherman’s paradise. The Aleutian Islands, Bristol Bay, Dutch Harbor and the Bering Sea were all home to the crab varieties of King Crab, Tanner and Dungeness. Crabs caught in these seas were made into prized culinary delights in the US and even in as far away as Japan. Some say an Alaskan king crab is almost equivalent to French wine.

Unfortunately, the Alaskan crab fishing industry crashed in 1983 and the whole of the fishing community was forced to look for fishing alternatives. Crab fishing picked up once again in 2001, and today, it still figures as one of Alaska’s most important industries, attracting trawlers even from Europe.

Most crab fishing is done in the fall and winter, as this is the most lucrative time for crab fishing in the whole year. There are around 250 crabs fishing boats that converge on some harbors, such as the Dutch Harbor, simply to haunt for the famed Alaskan king crabs. Some of these vessels cost more than a million dollars, and measure up to about 200 feet. Each crew usually consists of three to nine deckhands and one captain, who must often rely on his intuition to find the best spot to look for crabs.

To catch these crabs, anglers use 700-pound “pots” or steel traps, containing bait made from herring, sardines, cod or squid. Female crabs and juvenile crabs are often released back to the sea: anglers are only interested in male ones measuring about 6.5 inches, or snow crabs measuring about 4.

Since becoming a state in 1959, Alaska has produced about 2 billion pounds of red king crab, amounting to approximately $ 2 billion. In fact, the red king crab is second only to the red salmon as the most valuable species. The size of the haul of king crabs varies each year. In 2004, for example, the harvest of golden king crab amounted to 5.7 million pounds. The red king crab’s harvest reached up to 15.4 million pounds and with almost $5 per crab, the catch of red king crab during 2004 was worth about $66 million. No wonder crab fishing is still one of the most popular industries in Alaska today.

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