Aunty, where did you get those numbers? you, or any one else for that matter are allowed to go out in the Pacific Ocean ( Where most of the Commercial crab allocation comes from) and fish for crab during the winter seasons also. The crabbing is usually quite excellent if one is inclined to fish heavy pots in deep water in sometimes heavy seas. When these grocery store chains have a seafood sale like this it usually means that they have a surplus of frozen crab and need to make room for this winters supply which is being fished for off of the coast by the tribes as we speak soon to be joined by the cowboys.

You seem to have missed the sarcasm...

Biting tongue now.

I bought 4. They were caught in OREGON.

It's also called common sense...must be a man thing.
LOL

I thought it ironic that one ad said "while supplies last". I guess they really do intend to catch 'em all.

Now that is either a Boat Load of Bullcrap or Crab Bait. Roughly 8 million pounds of crab are allocated each year in Puget Sound and the Strait. Right off the top, tribes get half, four million pounds and they sell most of it on the open market. Then, 221 "Active Commercial Crabbers (License Holders) get a longer season to catch roughly 3.8 million pounds, and By the Way, don't risk nuttin!!!!! Guess what's left for the average Washingtoonian??? For those short on math skills like our Orygoonian Buddy, that's 200,000 pounds. By the by, those 221 active commercial crabbers only pay $50 per year for their licenses. Do you know "WHO" really pays the bill???? All 200,000 (approximate) recreational crabbers paying the $10 shellfish license plus that @!#%^& $3 Catch Record Card, and if yah don't turn it in, the bunch of yah CRC Scofflaws will donate another $1,300,000 to Generalissimo Christine and her spend crazy legislature through fines.

For me, I will NOT donate another dime in license fees or CRC's for Shellfish until the allocation is at least 50/50 between Commercials and Recreationals. It's high time we take the Department Back from Ken Jacobsen, a wholly owned subsidy of Sunkist.

Tom,

I was at Central Market the other day, as my kids were ogling over the tanks I asked the guy behind the counter if he knew where they were caught. He said he thought it was in the sounds somewhere.

None the less, I agree there is a surplus somewhere in the supply stream. With the economy fewer crab buyers, hopefully fewer crab taken? I doubt it.

Exactly!!!!!!!

Don't foget that they crab down off Central California ,too. So you might be eating California crab and our crab is shipped to the midwest. Costco probably gets California crab in it's stores first and then gets Oregon crab as the California crab is depleted. Safeway also gets California crab first of the season and soon as they sell out of the California crab they buy Oregon and Washingtion crab. Alaskan Dungeness is the best, meat is sweeter and they are bigger! they keep them for themselves ,but have seen them in markets in California for $6.99 a lb.

Aunty,
I may have been seeing wrong, but it looked like the tribes were dumping pots in the ocean over the Thanksgiving weekend. I never saw any pots out, so I could be wrong, but I did see a couple of Crab boats pull up to the fish buyers in Westport so I figured they probably were selling something.

If they did go out early, I find this a little disconcerting, as the sporties are kept from using pots till the 1st due to soft shells. Seems to me if our Co-managers do a study and find the shells hard enough to fish, they should have to report that to the state and then let it open for everyone at the same time.

The tribes trade some of their unused crab quota for salmon in the rivers.

I work at Fred Meyer in the meat dept. which is in charge of seafood,
all of the nearly nine hundred 25# of cases that got delivered to my store (we were a hub store so we get the delivery and other stores in the area come to get their crab from us) during the 3 days were marked "ocean run" and we were told by our buyers in the office that they were caught of the coast, not Puget Sound.
I also heard from others in the biz that the crabbers had a VERY good year and that the market is flooded with crab which is why the price is cheap.
Incidentally most of the stores are still running the $2.99lb. price today.

Crab was on sale for $1.99 lb at the Lacey Fred Meyer this afternoon. They said their supply would probably last through tomorrow morning. I'd guess these crab have been sitting around since Friday... who knows when they were cooked. The one we ate tonight was still good tasting.

The bounty of the sea???? We see constant reductions in sport catch limits because of the increase in commercial pressure. No doubt these people work hard, but that is no reason to support thier harvesting until the last crab is caught. And to say it is not thier fault the resource is not managed properly is a crock. The money commercial fishers pour into the politics of the northwest is huge and has great influence on the management of the resource.
If you want to buy crab, go right ahead, but don't make it some patriotic, support the little guy, take care of your neighbors deal.

In some areas accessible to sport crabbers, commercially caught crab comprises 85% of the available allocation and the sport season is a few short weeks during the summer months.



sounds very familiar to me.