www.montereycountynow.com DECEMBER 18-24, 2025 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY 27 three consecutive years with no commercial fishery due to diminishing waterways where salmon spawn. For crab and salmon fishers, that translates to missing the peak window to sell a prized fish during the busiest time of year for restaurants and families looking to feast, especially during the Thanksgiving and Christmas season (non-local crab is sometimes available, often from Washington). And the crabs also happen to be meatier this time of year, making for an incredibly tasty seafood and profitable time for local fishers. “Crab used to be nine months, it was a bigger part of your year,” Deyerle says. Now, the season has shrunk to about four months in the spring: “It couldn’t be worse. January [through] April are the toughest months to make it in the restaurant business, and that’s when Dungeness is open.” In the years since, fishers have been adapting or sinking. Many harbors are reporting some level of attrition as fishers are leaving the industry, or simply aging out of it. “We don’t have much of a fleet here anymore,” says Tom Hart, a local fisherman who has been docked in Monterey Bay since the 1970s. “We had 80 to 100 boats, now it’s down to just a couple boats around here.” In 1995, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife capped the number of vessels permitted to fish for Dungeness crab. Since then, those permits have been lost over time; CDFW estimates that a total of 552 permits were renewed in 2019, a decline of 18 percent since 1999 when 674 permits were renewed. The workforce has also shrunk. Statewide, the total number of individuals buying commercial fishing licenses has decreased, from 18,510 in 2020 to 15,581 in 2024, according to the CDFW. And 2025 is poised to be lower still, sitting at 14,291— 484 of those license holders participate in the Dungeness crab fishery. Unlike the Chinook salmon fishery, the population numbers for Dungeness crab are actually doing quite well. The issue locally is prospective whale entanglements. While regulations and gear catch up, some fishers are turning to other species, or needing to adjust their catch. But fishing for other fish that’s in season can be tougher to sell. “I used to salmon fish and black cod fish for 22 years. I have not fished black cod for over a year now, just because of the market,” says Khevin Melluger, a fisherman based out of Santa Cruz. “I’m learning to fish smaller amounts of fish for people. I used to fish for quotas, like you get 2,000 pounds for your trip limit. Well, sometimes it’s hard to find somebody to buy 2,000 pounds.” The challenge is how to market the fish—and where customers can find it. Just around the corner from Sea Harvest’s wholesale market, where Walter Deyerle’s family fleet and several other boats drop their catch, is the headquarters of Real Good Fish, a company that serves as the middleman between the fisher and consumer. A vast majority of their fish is locally sourced: brought in from Monterey Bay, Santa Cruz and Bay Area waters, as well as other parts of California. Their aim is two-fold: to offer sustainably sourced seafood and to support local seafood economies, which in their view are one and the same. “In general, unfortunately, fishermen often get lumped into this group of bad actors, and that’s just not the case,” says Alan Lovewell, co-founder of Real Good Fish. “Some of the most spirited, conservation-oriented, scientifically-oriented people I know are fishermen. And, those skills are really good for being a fisherman. To be a conservationist means that you’re protecting your livelihood and the resource that provides you a sustainable income.” Demand for seafood nationwide has surged significantly, up 38 percent from 1990 to 2022, reaching 20.8 pounds per person per year. And so has our imported fish: Approximately 75 to 90 percent of U.S. seafood consumption comes from imported products, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Lovewell’s goal at Real Good Fish is to educate the consumer on questions to ask and the things to look for when buying fish—not an easy thing to do, he adds. Seafood is often mislabeled to appear as another, more popular, or “local” species, when it’s not. For example, Lovewell explains that many local restaurants list “sand dabs” on the menu when they’re actually serving arrowtooth flounder from Alaska, misleading people to think they’re eating a local product. Rockfish (an umbrella term that includes nearly 60 species) sold locally often include vermilion, chilipepper, bocaccio, blackgill and gopher rockfish, each with its own distinct flavor characteristics. Black cod, confusingly, is the common name for sablefish and is not related to the cod family—it’s a fish found in deeper waters and has a more buttery flavor and silky texture. “Our ethos is: Ask your servers and your retailers more questions about their seafood,” Lovewell says, “which unfortunately puts the onus on the consumer.” He notes that asking where your food comes from isn’t meant to be conveyed as inherent distrust—but as a way for consumers to show they care about buying local. “It’s more about illustrating interest and demand that that’s what we want.” At their offices in Moss Landing, Jenn Lovewell, Chief Nutrition Officer at Real Good Fish, walks through the packaging facility where they are receiving oysters, tuna and black cod. Their orders are customizable; if a customer doesn’t want oysters, or black cod, they’ll swap in alternative fish under the same flat rate. Real Good Fish’s business model is to serve as the trusted broker of local seafood, in contrast to the average grocery store where fish may be trucked in from across the globe, farmed or caught in unsustainable ways, or simply difficult to verify what it is. When regulations around local fisheries shift, so does their inventory. Their goal is to keep supply chains short and transparent, minimizing intermediaries and showing exactly where and how the fish was caught (printed on their packaging labels). Like a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) box, they offer CSF (Community Supported Fishery) boxes filled with the seasonal fish they prepare at their packaging facility. Jenn Lovewell explains that in recent years, bluefin tuna—once the poster child of overfishing—has returned, and has been found in local waters, a success story and one that fishers played a key role. “Shutting down a fishery pushes people to imports,” she says, adding that fisheries management requires collaboration between policy makers, data scientists and fishers. “It’s not a one-size-fitsall, especially on a local or fleet level scale.” From a fisher’s perspective, a good price plus consistency form the basic calculus—and the crab and salmon fishery have historically met those marks. “Any fisherman interested in building a career on the water was pretty confident that they could make ends meet every month,” Alan Lovewell says. Just to enter the business, fishers Fishermen with Sea Harvest offload their morning catch of sablefish (also known as black cod) into a vat of fresh water to be brought into their wholesale market.
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