Commercial Dungeness crabbing boats in Oregon have a three day window to set their traps before they can begin their harvest at 9:00 a.m. on Dec. 16, so crabbers will begin setting their traps on Saturday morning, Dec. 13.
In past years, crabbers negotiated a base price for crab with processors and distributors before leaving port, but so far this year, the industry has not been able to collectively agree on a price.
Poggy Lapham is the captain of the Newport-based Michele Ann and will be headed out to set traps anyway.
“It's a really unfortunate situation we're in with not having an established price,” Lapham said. “This is something we haven't done in my career. I've been fishing for 20 years, so I guess we're going to try it, and hopefully it works out for us. But there's a lot of reasons why it might not.”
Despite his misgivings, Lapham is confident that demand for Dungeness crab outstrips supply. He’s equally as confident in his ongoing relationship with seafood processors and distributors and the profitability of his business model.