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Price talks keep crabbers in port Bad weather lends lack of urgency to negotiations By Mark Freeman Rogue Valley seafood lovers will have to wait indefinitely to satisfy their cravings for fresh crustacean as rough weather and tough negotiations between fishermen and buyers have delayed the start of Oregon�s Dungeness crab harvest. Crabbing boats remained at the Brookings port docks Friday despite the 12:01 a.m. start of the commercial Dungeness crab fishing season, delaying the delivery of the prized crab to markets. Fishermen instead spent the day at the Port of Brookings-Harbor offices negotiating prices with fish buyers, and no agreement had been reached as of Friday evening, port Manager Russ Crabtree said. Good crab-harvesting seas might have helped push negotiations to a quicker resolution, but the season started Friday with relatively rough weather conditions, said Nick Furman, the Charleston-based administrator of the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission. Once a price is settled on, crabbers will start pulling their pots and the flow of fresh Dungeness will begin almost immediately to places like Rogue Valley meat markets. Crabbers are expecting to follow last year�s record haul of $31.5 million worth of Dungeness with a good crab harvest this year along the south and central coasts, where early tests by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife show the meat quality in the crabs this year is better than last year. This has Rogue Valley crab-lovers waiting with buttered breath for their first pre-Christmas crustaceans � and Oregon�s crabbing industry is eager to keep that image alive. "That�s what our season is based around, that people will associate the first Dungeness of the season with the holiday season," Furman said. "We don�t want that to stop." Last year�s beginning price was a record high of $1.75 per pound and contributed to a landing of almost $5 million worth of crab from the Brookings fleet, ranking it fourth among Oregon ports and second to Charleston on the south coast. Early negotiations led some industry watchers to forecast a price between $1.40 and $1.60 per pound. Seafood buyers say they can get fresh crab shipped to the Rogue Valley immediately after the Dungeness are landed. While early ODFW tests show a high quality of crabs off the southern Oregon shore, the agency does not test for quantity � and that�s a key factor in whether the Brookings fleet of 50-60 crabbers will meet or exceed last year�s haul. "It�s all up to Mother Nature," Furman said. "At this point, it�s really, really hard to tell." Last year�s record payments to fishermen came as a result of a combination of factors that included high prices, a low inventory of frozen crab, and a good catch of 15.6 million pounds, the fifth-largest ever in Oregon. Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.