Ran out last week on Thursday helping a friend out with his new motor. Spotted over 60 crab buoys in our short run. Are these commercials or tribal ? Thanks.

Pretty sure those would be tribal. The NT commercials were done in February and won't open again until October. Past years I have seen Puyallup crab gear deployed as early as Mother's Day.

The crab season is set to open when the bios determine the molt is over and the crab have firmed up. Somehow, the Tribal bios determine this a month before the WDFW bios do! Happens every year...after year....after year.

They tell WDFW it's good to go, then fish. WDFW "postpones" our opening so there is no gear conflict, of course, that also means when you drop your pots, all that's left is females. (I was going to add undersized males, but they are disappearing too.)

It almost seems like it's planned that way.....

Actually, the recreational summer crab season is set to open IAW the current P.S. Crab Mgmt Policy with most MAs opening 1 July and closing after the Labor Day week-end. I don't believe WDFW "postpones" our opener; rather, the tribes take advantage of knowing when our opener is scheduled and hit it hard for a month or more prior to that date. Net effect is the same; a huge decrease in legal crab in the total remaining biomass; we get to work on the left-overs.

If you were to check out the proposed salt water rule changes submitted for consideration last year you will find one which proposed opening the recreational season concurrent with the first tribal pots being put in the water in those MAs where the State's share has historically not been fully harvested during the summer and winter recreational seasona. That and keeping in mind that the NT commercials still harvest more poundage than do recreational crabbers.

Anyway, as with virtually all of the rule change proposals submitted by the public WDFW Staff recommended it not be moved forward for further consideration. In short, death be unto it.

I've found the WDFW Shellfish folks to be extremely responsive--by phone and email--over the years. I've also met with them and can tell that they understand what's going on and have plenty of back-bone. If your crabbing area is not working well, then have a discussion with them, hear what they have to say, and offer your ideas for improvement. This is one of the better functioning parts of WDFW.

I can confirm there are a lot of Tualip tribal pots in MA 10 right now, they just issued a ***NEW CLOSURE DATE**** notification extending their fishery to June 9

What Sky-Guy said. The pic is form this Sunday, 4 June in Suquamish. You can see the truck that was used to unload the pots (many, many pots) and the tote used to haul away the crab. Hhhhmmm... I appear to be too dumb to post a pic... so just picture a box truck with a blue tote in it parked next to a stack of crab pots.

Hmmm, just out that MA 12 will open 24 June, MA 11 on 16 June, MA 4 and 5 on 16 June and that portion of MA 9 just north of the Hood Canal bridge will open on 24 June (http://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/shellfish/crab/).

No info as to why but one might speculate that it is to ensure that non-tribal harvesters have reasonable opportunity to harvest the State's 50% in specific management areas.

Thanks for all the replys. I did get a chance last week, Thursday to talk with 2 different tribal boats, while they were making pulls. out of 3 pots we watched them pull in MA 10, 1 keeper. They told us its been THERE worst year crabbing in most areas ever & that's why there season was extended for a week. Crabbing is looking pretty poor this year for us in the PS. But Iam gonna give it a shot, good luck to you all.

On a macro scale there is the simple question of WHY? Historically crab populations have fluctuated so is what we are experiencing (starting in MA 13 and south MA 12) a natural phenomenon?

A more immediate issue is one of equity. By virtue of the tribal crabbers not catching their half because there are fewer crab available than anticipated does that mean there will be less than half of the harvestable crab available for the State (meaning you and me) when our season opens? I will opine that is exactly what is occurring and will exacerbate the adverse impact of low numbers for State crabbers.

So, was there a failure to properly assess harvestable crab biomass?

Did the State do its own assessments in all MAs? Not to be overly conspiratorial but if the Tribes are doing assessments and find a low biomass it might be in their best interests to overstate the numbers thereby achieving an inappropriately high target half during negotiations with the State. Then when their crabbers aren't harvesting to that number the answer is to extend their fisheries - rather than enter into negotiations with the State to reduce the total allowable harvest. And, of course, that leaves the State with far less than half of the actual harvestable biomass.

I am not saying that this is happening but I am saying that the current system whereby tribal crabbers access the resource first is (1) unfair and (2) open to abuse especially if the agreed upon harvestable numbers are determined solely by the individual tribes.

This demonstrates the problem of fishing on forecasts and not evaluating as the season progresses. It rewards first in line and punishes the second.

This was the push of Hoh v. Baldridge where the non-Indian ocean fishery took the harvestable and left the tribe with zip.

If you are going to insist of using a forecast and sticking to it, the both sides should harvest at the same "rate" so that nobody falls behind. That is, if equity is a concern.

It's not only crab that the state relies on the tribes assessment (forecasts).....

They have to "agree" on a forecast before they can fish. Large pressure to agree.

Unfortunately, that is not always the case. I know for a fact that the Nisqually tribe has not agreed to a crab harvest number for at least the two most recent seasons and probably not for this season. And for the two seasons before they quit agreeing they simply had a horrendous catch reporting system and exceeded their agreed upon number by 3X then 2X and then quit agreeing to any number. Can't be criticized for overharvesting when you haven't agreed to a number.

But, obviously, WDFW accepts their tactic. If you don't say "no" then have you said "yes"?

If what you say about Nisqually is true, then hasn't WDFW simply abdicated responsible management?

One might ask how one "abdicates" management absent having the authority over all controllable factors.

Now, as to WDFW accepting the overall tactic of tribal fishers effectively corking the recreational crabbers I agree with you but will say that over the past several years to include 2017 there have been "early" openers for the recs in several MAs. While the related WDFW News Releases have been cryptic it is clear to me that those early openers have been to provide recs with some opportunity before all legal crab have been removed.

If you look at the rule change proposals submitted last year (when open for salt water rule changes - now every third year) for the 2017/2018 season there were several that addressed crab seasons to include one calling for rec openers to occur by emergency reg concurrent with the first tribal pot going in the water. It got absolutely no traction although the then Shellfish Manager who presumably quashed that proposal has subsequently left the Department.

But with the three year cycle for rule change proposals the next opportunity will be for the 2020/2021 season. Not very responsive to the stakeholders.....

If management requires agreement, which it does, then allowing tribal action is agreeing. There are court orders outlining how seasons are to be set and prosecuted. These have, at least in the past, included timetables. Obviously, the parties can agree to do something different.

Ultimately, the solution may need to be the Courts. That would take money and huevos. Lacking both, we maintain current practices.

Authority is interesting. Boldt mandated that the State had conservation authority. This was given away when Co-Management, begun at Pt Ludlow, was developed.

If numbers are down this year in MA 11 that would be the third year in a row numbers suck. I didn't even try 11 last year because 9 & 10 were so good and heard nothing but bad reports in 11. Am going to go out in there this weekend to find out if the information of poor fishing is correct. I will report back.

This state is NOT in a Co-management relationship. It is clear that our fisheries are being managed in a Dual-management process. Unfortunately (for the resources) conservation and replenishment of the stocks gets a back seat to harvest and greed! IF the SPORT FISHERMEN were managing our fisheries, this state would be a world class fishing destination and lots of tourist money would be spent in local economies!

Sport Fishermen SPEND lots of money to take few fish.

Commercials (Tribal and Non) Spend little to take large numbers.

This state is destroying the fisheries by NOT managing for conservation and NOT managing for Sport fishermen. We always get the left overs....

To be honest I don't really see how both user groups fishing would work out any other way than letting the tribes go first. Their fisheres are a few days at a whack, usually 24-48 hours depending upon landings. We want to have a July 1 - September season that runs most of every week. We can't expect them to go get their commercial share AFTER Septemeber.... Having them go first keeps gear conflict down, and allows us our long drawn out cushy season that is very poorly monitored.


If you're worried about quota overages I think the rec crabber needs to take a long hard look in the mirror. Recreational crab harvests in PS are one of the most under-monitored fisheries with the highest derelict gear bycatch and most "cowboy" harvest taking place from beach homes....

Just be happy they let us go!