Sport Crab Season Off To A Good Start

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS/KCBS) -- Sport crab season is off to an optimistic start here in the Bay Area. Traps are being set for this area's unique holiday tradition of crab for Thanksgiving.

Sport crabbers have the green light to start hauling in their delicious catch.

Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation Fisherman's Association, said soon they'll know from the opening of the sports crab season, how the commercial one will follow, but they're already anticipating good quality crab and plenty of it.

KCBS' Janice Wright Reports:

Grader was hopeful for, "probably a bumper season if not a record one."

The sport season opens first every year, to give the smaller fisherman a shot before the big guys move in.

While just the thought of Dungeness crab, maybe dipped in a little butter makes mouths water, Grader said crabbing is "one of the most miserable fisheries there is."

That's because there's so much competition for Northern California crabbers, always worried about big trawlers coming down from the north to cut into the catch.

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