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.

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Tonight's dinner!

We received our first shipment of fresh snow crab (opilio) in from Trident’s Saint Paul plant today.  With Valentine’s Day this weekend, coordinating this fresh shipment was a bit of a “nail-biter” for me.  There is only one freight plane leaving the island on Wednesdays- so I’m always worried about bad weather.

Last year the Bering Sea ice pack expanded south and engulfed the island.  Crab boats could not deliver for several weeks- which put a real damper on or fresh snow crab program.

I just went back to the cooler and sampled a leg; it’s excellent!  My friends out at Trident are taking care of me.  The crab is unusually large for opilio:)

My wife Katy and I are going to a dinner party tonight, so I will bring 10 pounds or so.  To my knowledge, there is no other company dealing in fresh snow crab right now.  It’s kind of a neat thought to realize that the only fresh crab out there right now happens to be sitting in our cooler.  I need to try  to figure out a way to get the word out about this wonderful product.  Once people try it fresh, they are usually remiss to go back to frozen.  Our business is in a great position to grow with this trend, as fresh Alaska crab is sure to grow in popularity.

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On a separate note, I had extra time while on the island, so I walked down to the beach and was able to take some pretty good pictures of fur seal pups.  Pretty adorable little things.

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The fishing grounds.

I received word yesterday that it took fishermen a couple of days to get “on the crab”, but the harvest of Alaska king crab is now proceeding at a good rate.  The Trident Seafoods plants at Akutan and Saint Paul are expecting their first deliveries on the 20th or 21st.  (On the map, Saint Paul is one of the 2 Pribilof Islands.)

We will be flying in our first shipment of the new season’s crab from
Saint Paul.

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The quota for 2008 is a healthy 20,354,000 pounds.  Fewer than 100 boats are fishing for this quota this year, and the first deliveries are expected within 3 or 4 days of the season’s opening.

Buyers in Japan are showing strong demand for Alaskan king crab, and I predict that the majority of Alaska’s 2008 quota will be exported.

I am flying in a shipment of the season’s very first fresh-frozen Alaskan red king crab from Trident’s Saint Paul Island plant, on the Bering Sea.  I am coordinating multiple shipments of fresh (never-frozen) king crab over the next few weeks.  I am proud of the fact that FishEx brings the first crab to market- ahead of our competition.

The way things usually work in Alaska is that crab is processed at a number of plants on the Bering Sea.  The majority of the quota is frozen, and after several weeks of accumulation, the bulk-frozen crab (in whole clusters) is shipped to Seattle, where it is checked-into various cold storage companies.  After that, it is pulled-out and processed into cut “legs & claws” for distribution throughout the United States.  The whole process generally takes several weeks.  At FishEx, we shortcut this process by flying in our first shipment directly from the plant, and usually have crab “on the ground” in Anchorage only days after the season opens, and weeks ahead of our competition.

Buying Tip: Ask your local fishmonger when the king crab he/ she is selling was caught.  You may receive an answer like “Oh, it’s from this season’s catch.”  This should make you suspicious.  Alaska’s main king crab season runs between October 15, 2008 and January 15th, 2009.

Both fresh, and a new season’s fresh-frozen king crab are notably superior to crab that has been in cold storage for a year or more.  Whenever I inspect a case of crab, the first thing I do is to lean in close and inhale deeply.  New crab has a distinct, sweet “crabby” smell that contrasts sharply with the “briny” smell of older crab.

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