Stone crab season successful so far in Manatee

MANATEE -- Stone crab season isn't disappointing crabbers and restaurateurs so far.

Karen Bell, owner of Star Fish Co. Market & Restaurant, said she's had to put limits on her crabbing boats. She can't sell enough of the tender crab claws to keep up with the amount coming in.

"Production is going well, but I wish sales were better," Bell said. She's dropped prices to $13.95 per pound to accommodate the change in supply and demand. The struggle this year lies with perceptions consumers have about stone crabs stemming from the last few years, she said.

"I kind of think what happened is in the past few years the price was so high because there were so few around that some restaurants took them off the market," Bell said. "Now we're just trying to get them back into people's thoughts."

Some of Bell's customers often put a Florida twist on their Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner and feast on stone crabs instead of turkey or ham.

The limits on Bell's boats are 250 pounds per day. The difference between last year's catch and this year's is astounding. Last year Bell said she was lucky to see 100 pounds per day on her boats and this year they could bring in 500 pounds per day if she let them. And while it's nice to have some reserve stock, the stone crabs are "much more of a fresh market."

"It's a lot of money to put in the freezer," Bell said.

Predicting stone crab yields could help restaurateurs, crabbers and fisheries estimate how many boats and traps they'll need each year. But predicting patterns of the fickle crustaceans remains a mystery even to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission's most knowledgeable experts.

Theresa Bert, a research scientist for FWS who lives in Bradenton, said better or worse stone crab years are as much a mystery to them as they are to crabbers and restaurateurs. Whatever is causing the big catch this year, it's shocking to Bert.

"This has caught us by surprise," Bert said. "I have been working on stone crabs since 1977 -- I got my PhD from Yale on stone crabs and I've never seen anything stranger than what we're seeing now."

Research teams are conducting research and Bert hopes within the next couple of years the data will be able to shed some light on what factors affect stone crab populations. The lifespan of sea creatures affects predictions, Bert said.

"Like bay scallops live for one year," Bert said. "You do a survey and you know how many there are."

Stone crabs live for roughly eight years and if they survive declawing or don't get declawed the crabs can live for years and remain legal-size. Crab claws can only be harvested if they are two and three quarter inches long.

Cyclical population patterns are Bell's best guess and she may be on to something. On some years, more stone crabs reach legal size than in other years, Bert said. Bert and her team have studied weather changes, predators and other variables without finding a concrete relationship yet. Different species of stone crabs live in different regions of Florida, so the fluctuations in stone crab yields could also be due to characteristics of the different creatures, as well.

"So far we have not hit upon it," Bert said. "There's something that guides it, but we don't even have a clue yet."

Janelle O'Dea, business reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7095 or follow her on Twitter@jayohday.

This story was originally published November 23, 2015 at 5:14 PM with the headline "Stone crab season successful so far in Manatee ."