CORTEZ, Fla. -- Sunrise on Tuesday marks the official start of Stone Crab season in Florida.
- Stone crab season begins October 15
- Commerical fishermen placed traps 10 days ago
- Local stone crabs likely available for sale on Wednesday
- More here: FWC Regulations
Commercial crabbers were permitted to drop their traps on October 5, but have to wait 10 days until they can pull them up and check on the harvest.
At Cortez Bait & Seafood, commercial snote crab harvester Paul Moore dropped roughly 1,000 traps into gulf waters earlier this month, and has another 1,500 ready to go.
“If we do a half pound a trap on average, I’ll be happy,” he said.
Memories of a historically bad red tide season last year still plague many of the commercial fishermen in the Manatee County’s fishing village of Cortez. During the height of the season, crabbers had to travel more than two hours north to find stone crabs which cost them time and drove up prices.
“I’m hoping to catch crabs closer to home,” Moore said. “That’s the big thing. Last year, we had to travel to Tarpon Springs.”
On the retail side, Gregory Surace at Star Fish Company hopes that crabbers find full traps on Tuesday.
With the water so warm by Cortez right now, Surace stated that he wasn’t so sure the crabs would be there this soon. Surace said in his experience, stone crab season can give their registers a 15 percent boost.
“If the water cools off, we’ll have a great season I believe,” he said. “We’re hoping for a great year, we really are.”
The season also opens on October 15 to recreational crab fishers. They must be registered with a recreational saltwater fishing license through the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and are limited to five traps per person.
For recreational crabbers, only one claw of allowable size can be taken.
This year’s stone crab season runs through May 15, 2020.