The Never-ending-story.

Well, 2020 has gone, let’s start again. The crab fleet is tied to the dock in Washington, Oregon and California. There is major discrepancy in the price we want and what the major player is offering. 

   Next obvious question would be, why should it affect my boat because I sell directly to yourselves and local suppliers? 

  The big cartel is PAC choice. They also have there fingers in the fleet by giving loans out to boats. They are “there” boats. These are high volume large vessels that can handle in one load, what would take me the whole season to get. PAC choice controls the markets and have recently moved as far south as Bodega Bay. This year you would have noticed a lot of frozen crab on the market. That is PAC choice product. They have effectively taken San Francisco’s Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years markets from us and the smaller suppliers. 

How? They have impregnated themselves into our fleet. The volume of crab that does come into the docks could not be handled by the smaller suppliers. Smaller suppliers can not stick there necks out to far because PAC will take them out. 

  If I went out and set my pots with my own market against the fleet consensus which is manipulated by PAC strategists, I would suffer consequences. I may lose all my pots. This would likely not be a direct order from PAC, but crab boats with the bravo “my way or the highway” retributive logic. It is not a free market.

  So, how do we solve this problem? I for one am going to let this season play out. I have been in the crab industry here for over a decade but still consider my self new boy on the block with these scenarios. I’m vocal at meetings but nevertheless do get rolled a lot.
  
  I’m letting this play out at the moment because this is the year to do so.

1.  There is not much crab out there. we know that.

2. The demand for crab during the holidays would have swamped our docks. Boats would have all been selling from the dock due to PAC’s stalled negotiations and coupled with covid and suppliers trucks, I think covid would have won. Our dock sales would have been shut down.

3. PAC is showing there cards more clearly now, they want our season to start here in San Francisco from January 1st on. That would give them the holiday market here.

  PAC did send a letter to California fish and game alluding to that. They alluded to basically a coastwise opener on one date. It is a well crafted letter where there hidden agenda of dominating the market is not apparent. They used the whales and “fisherman asked us” to write this. Whales are a separate issue here and I will be devoting a section on my website to that issue. I spotted a major hole in that letter that I will be discussing with CDFW director Bonham. That being, at the height of Covid. PAC wants to bomb the entire coast into there facilities. If any of you have sent our harbor when the crab season is in full swing, it’s pandemonium. 

  I am noticing a lot of fisherman in the fleet for San Francisco wanting our November 15th start back.  I believe we can push PAC back. Our dealings will be with NGO’s and the exploding whale populations.

  Our coast is a healthy coast. We are regulated plenty. With crab, we only keep males over 6 1/4”. The breeding cycle is not interrupted. Generally, crab populations move in a 6 to 7 year cyclic curve. We are on the bottom of one now.

HOW CAN YOU HELP.

  That is simple. Demand the best. Fresh local crab. The frozen rubbish does not compare. To PAC, he can not see you, he’s sees the graph of his frozen market pushing into our market. His customers are shareholders.

  Here’s hoping.

Captain Barry