Season is finally open, but still no crab to eat.

Byline: Winston Ross The Register-Guard

FLORENCE - Crab lovers, lick your chops.

After a five-week delay, Oregon's most valuable fishery got off to a lackluster start over the weekend and is now indefinitely stalled by a spate of nasty weather on the coast.

But at least the majority of the pots are in the water. As soon as fishermen get a chance to reel them in, crustacean-hungry consumers can expect a bounty of fat Dungeness crab to start crawling into the marketplace, at what is likely to be the lowest prices of the season.

What's good for crab eaters is bad for crab catchers, however. After last year's record 33.7 million-pound harvest, Oregon fishermen were counting the $50 million they earned with glee. But the supply glut forced much of their product into the freezer, lowering asking prices for the following year.

This year, the fishery's opener stalled a month, after regulators concluded the crabs weren't fat enough, a move that dealt a devastating blow to Oregon fishermen because it left them with nothing to sell during the lucrative holiday season.

"A lot of the crab that would have been sold for Christmas and New Year's as fresh whole cook is going to go in the freezer," said Nick Furman, executive director of the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission.

Then came a predictable battle over price, with buyers leery of paying too much for a product that already had missed its best market and now faces competition from cheaper Opilio or snow crab from Canada and Alaska, whose season begins this month.

For the past two years, buyers and crabbers have overcome sticking points with the aid of a state supervisor. This year, too many complications forced the two sides to scrap state-supervised negotiations and hammer out port-by-port prices. To the dismay of holdouts in other parts of the coast, Newport fishermen agreed with one processor on $1.35 per pound last week, getting the season started.

"Newport stuck its neck out and did the heavy lifting," said Al Pazar, chairman of the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission and a local fisherman. "Some of the other ports resent us for that. There probably are some hard feelings out there."

Boats went out Saturday, set thousands of pots in the water and came back in, only to discover another roadblock: weather.

A fierce winter storm and 25-foot swells have rendered bar crossings uncrossable. The bigger boats that stayed out are still there, and the smaller boats that returned are stuck at port.

First, it was crab size. Then, it was price. Now, it's Mother Nature.

"Quite a few of these coastal communities that rely on crabbing didn't have much of a Christmas," Pazar said. "That's a lot of crewmen, skippers, owners, cannery workers and truckers. Last year, when we had a big December, I'm sure the car lots sold a bunch of new Toyotas and Fords."

The trials for Oregon crabbers don't end when the weather breaks, either. Removing the state from the negotiating team also meant no 64-hour "pre-soak" period, during which boats are allowed to set pots but not haul them in. That gives small boats a chance to keep up with their larger counterparts by making more than one trip to drop pots. Since no one can pull them back in during that time, there's no particular hurry.

No "pre-soak" means a return to the old derby fishing. In a mad rush to keep up with big boats that can ferry up to 500 pots to sea at once, the smaller ships will brave conditions they otherwise wouldn't and venture out into dangerous waters. Three-quarters of the fishery's total landings typically come during the first eight weeks of the season.

"Every time you lose that pre-soak, the danger increases," Pazar said. "It's the race to fish."

Factor in outside influences - Washington Indian tribes, for example, are exempt from many regulations and are entitled to as much as 50 percent of the state's catch, which is pushing more non-Indian fishermen into Oregon waters - and the economic outlook for crabbers here is downright gloomy.

Still, what's bad news for crab catchers is good news for crab eaters. The delays mean crabs have had that much more time to fill out before they're snared, which means the product is "beautiful," as Pazar puts it. And the fact that fishermen missed the holiday season - their best chance to sell crabs whole - means more of the product will have to be frozen or sold in sections, lowering the price.

Buyers are eagerly awaiting the return of the boats, and local crab, a Eugene fish seller said. When news stories about the price dispute broke during the holidays, retail sales came to a "screeching halt" at Fisherman's Market, owner Ryan Rogers said. "It finally became clear to consumers that there really wasn't any Oregon crab, is the only thing I can figure."

Still, Rogers drove to the San Juan Islands in Washington, desperate to have shelves stocked for the New Year. The Puget Sound's Lummi Indian tribe promised him a load of crab, he said, but when he got there, the fishermen had sold it to someone from Canada.

"Whoever's there gets the crab," Rogers said. "I figured out what was going on and sat there and waited all day the next day. I got somebody else's crab."

Rogers since has found Oregon crab through a buyer in Charleston, who is selling crab caught by a fisherman from Westport, Wash.

"We're paying a higher price, but we're just darn happy to have crab, finally," he said.

Now the challenge is to persuade people to buy it. Furman was headed to Portland on Tuesday for a meeting with executives of McCormick and Schmick's seafood restaurants, who are kicking off a monthlong crab promotion across the country. Gov. Ted Kulongoski also proclaimed January as Oregon Dungeness Crab Month, another move to boost awareness of the product.

"We're just trying to do whatever we can to make sure people think about us beyond Christmas and New Year's," Furman said. "We take Dungeness crab for granted on the West Coast. It's the premier crustacean. But you go in other markets and it's not as well known."

What remains an unknown is just how much crab is out there. After two booming years in a row, the cyclical nature of the fishery means a decline in supply is sure to happen at some point. But if that supply sags enough, it could push prices back up.

"These things do go in cycles," Rogers said.

CAPTION(S):

Ryan Rogers, owner of Fisherman's Market in Eugene, cooks crab in front of his store Tuesday. Rogers found a supply of Washington crab.