- Stone crabbing season started on Oct 15 and goes until May 1
- According yo FWC it generates about $30M each year in Florida
- Watch the video to see how stone crabs benefit local businesses and fishermen here in Wakulla County.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
“I mean I love it, I’ve always been in it you know.”
Mitch Spears has been a fisherman his whole life and says stone crabs bring in the most money.
“It’s a rich man’s food it’s about the best thing that’s going on for us as far as price goes everything else you can hardly sell it it’s hard to get bait now.”
With inflation, Spears said it’s been harder overall to afford items like bait and traps which is why some have left the industry.
“The price of everything, if you don’t get some crabs, you go in the hole quick and if you have more traps, you have more to lose so the ones who survive are good crabbers.“
While the industry has its ups and downs, they say this year has been helpful because of the storms.
Stanley West owner of Riverside Care in Saint Marks says the weather has been good for this year’s stone crab season.
“It helps crabs to crawl so I know it’s not good to talk about the hurricanes but they need a little bit of weather to stir up the water to make it a little cloudy so the crabs will crawl around and find the traps.”
To help promote the stone crab season, the cafe hosts a stone crab festival every year.
“It drives people out you know it’s a specialty item because we don’t have them around so it’s it is something that did you get a different crowd of people and they come and spend money.”
West says it helps the business and stone crabbers.
“It’s all about keeping things going with labor cost going up everywhere it’s part of it makes it very beneficial.”
Spears says support from the county and consumers helps them stay in business.
“With people eating them it does good for us just having people getting the word out and all.”
Stone crab season is October 15 through May 1st. The Stone Crab Festivalis Saturday, October 19th.
