Southeast king crab reopens for a second year after a long drought

Southeast Alaska's king crab fishery is opening for a second straight year — a modest comeback for a fishery that was closed for seven years running, and one still hovering just over the line the state requires to fish at all.

Crabbers can drop pots for red and blue king crab starting 10 am Sunday, Nov. 1, under a regionwide harvest limit of about 213,000 pounds, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced Sept. 2. That's barely above the 200,000-pound floor the state sets as the threshold for opening a competitive fishery — clearing it by about 6.5 percent. It's also almost identical to last year's limit, up less than 1 percent.

For seven straight years, from 2018 through 2024, there was no season at all. The fishery was closed every one of them for the same reason: the estimated amount of legal-size male crab fell below that 200,000-pound line. In the last two closed years, the estimate sat around 117,000 to 119,000 pounds — well short. Then the 2025 survey found the stock had rebounded enough to reopen, and it's held just above the threshold since.

The rebound has limits. The weight of catchable male crab climbed sharply — up 55 percent heading into last season, to about 2.65 million pounds — but that still sits below the long-term median of 3 million, and last season ended early: the state closed the final areas in January, citing very low fishing effort and almost no legal crab being found.

There's also a running disagreement about how much crab is actually out there. Much of Southeast's crab grounds aren't surveyed — the state estimates those areas using a catch split drawn from the 1970s and '80s — and the region's shellfish biologist, Adam Messmer, has said crabbers believe there are more crab present than the department's assessment shows. The area-by-area harvest limits for the coming season, including how much is assigned to unsurveyed waters, haven't been published yet.

The whole framework is up for review soon. The state's Southeast king crab management plan expires in January 2028, sending it before the Alaska Board of Fisheries ahead of the 2029 season — a plan whose own rules direct the department to use the best available science and account for uncertainty to avoid overfishing.

Registration, pot tags and logbooks are available at area offices after Sept. 11.