“It definitely affects my ability to work because the weather gets rougher, and if you don’t know when you’re going to go fishing, your crew eventually will leave,” he said. “A couple of years ago, my crew bailed on me. It’s a difficult position to be in.”
This year’s delay means the crabs people buy in California will likely be frozen by distributors or from out of state.
“The Thanksgiving market is crucial to distributing crabs,” Barnett said. “It is considered a Thanksgiving and Christmas tradition, but they might not be California fresh crabs.”
His more significant concern is that if the state further delays the season, supply will be low along the entire West Coast, and prices could rise.
“They aren’t catching enough up there (from out of state, in places like Washington) to supply the country, let alone the whole West Coast,” he said. “It’s a tough, tricky situation we’re going through right now.”