We are pleased to announce that local fishermen will be out on the water on Monday 1/11/21 and bringing in delicious, sweet Dungeness Crab by the end of the week.
HMBSMA members and almost every other fisherman in our port has stood strong with the rest of the West Coast during these challenging times, and we are pleased to finally be getting to work. We are proud that HMBSMA was an integral part of coordinating with the San Francisco Crab Boat Owners Association and the Bodega Bay Fishermen’s Marketing Association to create the historical organized safe start agreement that is underway right now.
It has taken an extraordinary level of communication and unity among a traditionally diverse fleet to wait so long to fish, and then to self regulate a starting date and a pre-soak under a “gentleman’s agreement”, but that is exactly what is happening. The agreement for a safe start process was reached between fishermen in Bodega Bay, San Francisco, Half Moon Bay, Vallejo, Santa Cruz, Moss Landing and Monterey on 12/29/20 to mitigate at least some uncertainty and to provide a safer start for the whole fleet. When a price was agreed to on 01/08/21 the process in the agreement was enacted and this has resulted in the scheduled set time of 8 am on 1/11/21 at 8 am and a haul time of 8 am on Weds 11/13/21.
The need for this agreement was to reduce the damages and dangers that can follow what fishermen call a “shotgun start”. A shotgun start is a scenario when a price agreement and fishing beginning in another region is the equivalent of a gun going off in a race. This results in local vessels heavily loaded with gear being forced to scatter and run out to sea on as little as an hour’s notice in sometimes dangerous conditions. For 2021 this scenario has been avoided and we hope this is a new precedent for the future.
This weekend fishermen are calmly making last minute preparations ahead of Monday’s set time. Shoreside businesses, markets and communities that support the fleet are preparing to be ready as they start hauling gear on Wednesday and bringing crab to market & consumers can now plan to enjoy beautiful, local, sweet Dungeness Crab that are ripe for harvest by the end of next week.
We appreciate the public’s support and love of Dungeness Crab and are happy to be getting to work to bring in amazing high-quality, local delicious crab to enjoy by next week at this time! If you are looking to purchase crab off of the boat we hope you will look for an HMBSMA member to support- they have an orange sticker on the boats and you can find more info about them on our Off the Boat Sales page.