Juris Graney
Staff writer
There aren’t many occupations in which you can miss out on $7000 and still remain optimistic about the future but it appears snow crab fishing might be one of them.
Or it might just be Keith Fitzpatrick.
Last week as the St Anthony Bight fisherman watched his last haul of the season leave his 35-footerAtlantic Sunsetat Goose Cove, the 15-year Atlantic Ocean veteran wasn’t lamenting the fact that his boat fell 5000 pounds short of their season quota.
“You have to be an optimist, if not you’d never get out the harbour,” he said.
“We’ll just take it as a bad year and hope we don’t get no more.
“Every year we’re normally finished by the middle of July and normally we have four quotas on this boat caught by then but this year we only had three and we still left some in the water.
“It’s been a different summer all together up here with the weather. We have been tied up more than we’ve been out because the weather’s been bad, been slowin’ us down and the crab is slow.”
A 12 per cent reduction in the snow crab quota in Division 3K from last year’s 16,475 metric tons to this year’s 14,440 metric tons should have had the season wrapped up earlier than usual.
But Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture resource manager Annette Rumbolt said that wasn’t the case with 14 per cent, or 2020 metric tons, was left in the water when the season closed.
The overall picture was slightly better with 93 per cent of Newfoundland’s total quota of 56,087 metric tons landed this season, a season which started almost a month late because of a pay dispute between buyers and the Fish, Food and Allied Workers (FFAW).
The season was extended in most areas to compensate for the late start and poor weather but in the end, there was still a lack of crab.
“This certainly is abnormal,” Ms Rumbolt said.
“To leave 14 per cent of the catch in the water is not normal for crab; we usually take between 97 and 100 per cent.
“We were expecting to see a reduction in crab numbers (in Area 4), we were hoping that the numbers were wrong, but it became the reality this year.”
Anecdotal evidence suggests the weather conspired against the smaller 35-foot fleet. Mr Fitzpatrick dropped his first haul on June 1 but had to wait two weeks before he could head back out to haul them in.
“We had 8000 pound of crab in our first haul, now those same 200 pots are hauling 2000 pound. You’ve got to be bringing in 4000 or 5000 pound to make it feasible but when you are bringin’ in 2000 well it just don’t cut it,” he said.
“Most of these boats every other year have their quota in four to five trips but this year we are up to 10 or 12 so you’re cuttin’ your profit all the time.
“The season started off good, really good but after a couple of hauls it tapered off, it slowed right down.”
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