Stone crab season draws to a close for Cortez. Crabbers have seen better. They have seen worse
It seems that Florida’s commercial stone crab season is always a gamble, with crabbers at the mercy of hurricanes, red tide, and, more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic that upset the world’s economy.
In spite of those challenges, Karen Bell of A.P. Bell Fish Company, 4600 124th St. W., said that that it was an OK season.
“It went better than I thought, and the prices were high,” Bell said of the harvest that started Oct. 15, and comes to a close Sunday, with the last day of harvest on Saturday.
While not the best season ever, it was better than two years ago when red tide made crabbing off Cortez waters impossible. Crabbers had to sail an hour north to waters off Clearwater and Tarpon Springs, making for much longer days to boat the same amount of claws.
Greg Surace of Star Fish Company, 12306 46th Ave. W., said the season started strong for a while, and then died.
“A lot of people weren’t going out if the crabs weren’t going to be jumping into their pots,” Surace said.
In some cases, commercial fishermen were able to make more money catching bait fish than harvesting crab claws, he said.
There was a good market from consumers and high-end restaurants for grouper, mahi mahi and shrimp, Surace said.
Danny Barrett has been working at A. P. Bell Fish Company for 18 years, weighing, grading and cooking claws harvested by local crabbers.
“The season wasn’t bad. It started with a lot of jumbos and larges, then we started getting floaters (claws that aren’t full of crab meat),” Barrett said.
In a typical season, Barrett might cook anywhere between 800 and 1,800 pounds of claws. Friday morning he heated the water in huge vat where the claws are cooked, in preparation for the harvest that would be arriving in the afternoon, averaging about 115 claws per vat.
The annual season closure date was modified last year in response to a long-term decline in harvest and because the stone crab fishery is likely undergoing overfishing. These changes are intended to increase the stone crab population and build resiliency in the fishery, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Piney Point threat hangs over fishing industry
The commercial fishing industry is sensitive to anything that affects water quality in the Gulf of Mexico.
When the phosphate stacks at Piney Point were found to be leaking in March, threatening a bigger rupture that could have sent a tidal wave of contaminated water into neighborhoods around Port Manatee, officials relieved the pressure with a controlled release into Tampa Bay.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection estimates that about 215 million gallons of contaminated water were released from Piney Point into Tampa Bay.
During the emergency, nearby residents had to be evacuated from their homes. The immediate threat has passed, but the long-term impact on Tampa Bay remains unknown.
“Not again,” Bell recalls thinking when she heard that contaminated water was being released into Tampa Bay, raising concerns about the return of red tide.
“We have had that issue before. It’s kind of disheartening,” Bell said.
While some crabbers are still bringing in their pots, others brought them in a month ago, due to the up-and-down nature of the season, she said.
“The guys are trying to stay away from Tampa Bay. So far they haven’t seen anything that looks problematic,” Bell said.
Gov. Ron DeSantis has directed the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to put together a plan to permanently close Piney Point, putting an end to a problem that has been simmering for more than two decades.
On April 20, the Manatee County Commission approved a $10 million construction agreement to build an underground injection control well to dispose of waters from Piney Point.
This story was originally published April 30, 2021 at 12:36 PM.
