Oct 31 2009
St. Matthew Blue King Crab
When I was younger, and just getting FishEx started, I worked as a deckhand on crab boats fishing on Alaska’s
Note the royal blue highlights on the shell of this Saint Matthew blue king crab.
Bering Sea. I fished for blue king crab around St. Matthew Island back in ’98, and it has the dubious distinction in my memory of being the worst season I ever worked. Deckhands are responsible for paying their own transportation costs, and my ticket to Dutch Harbor had cost me $1,000. I fished on a boat called the Sitkin Island, and after 2 weeks of hard, dangerous work, my share of the catch amounted to $500. In effect, I had just succeeded in paying $35 per day for the privilege of working!
Other boats had fared equally badly, and the district was closed that year, in order to allow the population to rebuild. Finally, on September 21, 2009, the National Marine Fisheries Service declared the St. Matthew crab stock rebuilt, and the district re-opened to fishing . I am pleased to see that the stocks are once again healthy, and that this crab is now available to fishermen.
