Yes, You Can Still Catch Fresh, Local Dungeness Crab for Thanksgiving

Andrew Higa woke up before dawn on a recent weekday morning and headed for San Francisco’s Ocean Beach. Wearing rain gear, he braved the cold and wind at low tide, hoping to catch enough Dungeness crabs in time for Thanksgiving. 

“My parents are actually flying up for Thanksgiving, so I’m trying to get enough, but I’m stuck with one right now,” said Higa, as he pulled a 7-inch-wide crab out of a bucket — the only one he had caught after several hours of casting out into the stormy, gray-hued water. 

Higa, who is from Hawaii, said he first ate crab on Thanksgiving when his cousins from the Bay Area came to visit and brought live crab with them. 

“I just thought because they’re coming from San Francisco, they’re bringing us crab,” he said. “I didn’t know it was a tradition.” 

With California’s commercial Dungeness crab season delayed for a sixth season in a row, Bay Area amateur fishers, like Higa, are trying to keep alive a treasured Bay Area tradition — eating fresh, local Dungeness crab during the holidays. The recreational season is open in most of the state with some restrictions. This means anyone with a fishing license can head to the beach or a boat and catch 10 Dungeness crabs a day. 

The commercial season delays are due to a 2019 settlement agreement between the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, and the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity. The agreement prevents state regulators from opening the season if endangered animals, like Humpback whales, are spotted in high enough concentrations off the coast. These animals can and have gotten entangled in the ropes attached to crab traps, causing injury and death, so regulators must delay the season until the animals leave the area. 

CDFW can also delay the season if Dungeness crabs in certain fishing zones are not big enough, if too many endangered animals were entangled in past seasons, or if there are high levels of toxins in the crabs. (A small portion of the recreational Dungeness crab fishery is currently delayed in the northernmost part of the state due to elevated toxin levels in the crabs.)

The season delay means that Dungeness crab sold in seafood markets in the Bay Area are coming from out of state. Alberto Wu, a manager at Fresh Meat Seafood Market on San Francisco’s Mission Street, said people have mixed reactions when they learn the crabs sold there are actually from Washington.

“People will complain about the price for sure, but they still buy it most of the time because they need it for their tradition,” Wu said.

At around $14 a pound, the out-of-state crab costs roughly twice as much as local crab would, owing to increased shipping costs, Wu said.

“Because of the price, I would like local crab way better,” he added. 

For folks still determined to have local crab on Thanksgiving, there’s another way: Charter a boat to take you out crabbing. 

Patrick Harrington, a captain and deckhand on the San Francisco-based charter fishing boat Bass-Tub, said in the days before Thanksgiving, its trips are completely booked. Bass-Tub charges $150 for a day of crabbing, after which anyone with a fishing license can walk away with the daily limit of 10 Dungeness crabs.

“It definitely brings people out to get their holiday crab,” he said. “You get a lot of customers that don’t go fishing the entire year. They purely want that holiday crab.”

Harrington said the spike in trips is noticeable because charter trips have been slow this year. 

“But there is an increase, which is 100 percent related to Thanksgiving,” he said.

Vicky Francisco, of San Francisco’s Ingleside neighborhood, said she’s not willing to go through all that trouble. She said that after buying directly from crabbers using the Off the Boat Sales Program in times when the commercial season was open, she couldn’t settle for out-of-state crab. 

“The ones fresh from the boat are very flaky, the meat is white, and there’s just a distinct fresh flavor,” Francisco said. 

She plans to host 18 family members for Thanksgiving this year. She said that although the commercial season delays are disappointing, her family has gotten used to Thanksgiving without crab — a tradition her mother started in the ’80s.

“I don’t know what it is, but it’s just something about the crab that brings them together, more so than anything else,” Francisco said.