Originally Posted By: Carcassman
But, there are plenty of crab out there so buy your license!.

One "problem" with wild natural resources is that the populations naturally fluctuate. Highs and lows. Humans don't like variation. We want every trip to be about "the same as it always was".


If you've been around long enough (and I qualify) you've experienced those naturally occurring swings. Fair enough.

Yes, expectations are a bitch when not realized. In the case of crab I will offer that WDFW has alluded to those natural swings but at the same time said they would stay the course that all legal males can be removed every year and still have a healthy population. Is it time for a reality check??

Compounding that situation is the perpetuation of those expectations with less than realistic data. How did we see last year's MA 11 combined tribal and Rec harvest shake out at 25% of the agreed upon total harvest number?

As I recall the managers' primary tool is a running 5 year average so, again, if that works on a reasonably stable or increasing biomass then great. But it clearly is the wrong tool on the down swing. Reality check??

Finally, we did okay in 8-2 on Saturday but Sunday was considerably slower. Way, way too early for a big dropoff in success rates but I am afraid that is what will be occurring. I don't think any of our crab were over 7 inches and while there was a fair mix of undersized males and females the total number of crab in the pots seemed down from prior years (probably been on the slide for several years).
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