Fort Bragg Crabbers Haul Up the Last Pots and Wrap the Season — A Better Year Than 2024–25

Fort Bragg crab boats have been pulling their pots over the past ten days as catches dwindle, and most crews now say they’re done for the year. On Sunday night, the Myra Jean came in with a discouraging haul and decided to call it. Frank has spent the past month down on the docks talking with fishermen about prices and harvests — still the only reliable way to understand what’s actually happening. Agency data arrives months, sometimes years, after the fact, and both processors and fishermen are known to exaggerate when it suits them. Bob Juntz, who owns much of the harbor, has been out on the docks nearly every time we’ve stopped by, including at dusk on Sunday. A former urchin diver, Juntz doesn’t inflate numbers or complain for effect; at this point, he’s seen it all.

Juntz said fishermen were getting about $5 a pound — higher than at the start of the season, but still well below what commercial boats had hoped for. Normally, a poor catch drives prices up by simple supply and demand, while big landings push them down. But Noyo Harbor is just one stop along the West Coast, and heavy catches elsewhere drag prices down for everyone. The word on the docks was that Eureka had a much stronger season. Given how unreliable agency reports and industry chatter can be — both sides of the contract table tend to spin their own version — we’ll have to take that as the best available truth.

According to Juntz, crabbers earned more per pound last year despite landing fewer crabs. He said 2026 was a tougher year overall, but still better than 2024–25 thanks to the stronger local catch. The season here didn’t open for commercial boats until mid‑January because December tests showed elevated domoic acid levels. San Francisco and Bodega Bay were scheduled to open just after New Year’s, but a price strike delayed their start until just before the Noyo fleet finally hit the water. Local fishermen now also benefit from a rule preventing boats from one harbor from rushing into another just as the fishing gets good.

A few enterprising commercial boats may still be heading out — the season technically runs until June — but it’s rare for anyone to fish past March. Recreational crabbing in Noyo Harbor opened in December and runs through July 30.

In the end, this season didn’t end with a headline so much as a shrug — a few tired boats easing back into Noyo after one last try, a handful of crabbers deciding they’d seen enough. That’s how it goes out here: no speeches, no drama, just men and women reading the water and calling it when the ocean has had its say. It wasn’t the year they hoped for, but it was better than the last one, and sometimes that’s the victory you get.

Below are the photos — the docks, the boats, the people who make a living at the edge of the continent. Take a moment with them. They tell the rest of the story.