30 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY DECEMBER 18-24, 2025 www.montereycountynow.com promise in recent years as fishers have been trialing them throughout the spring and early summer seasons. Currently, three types of experimental fishing permits (EFPs) are in use in the Dungeness crab fishery: two that use a Bluetooth signal to deploy pop-up gear (under the Sub Sea Sonics EFP and the National Marine Sanctuary EFP), and one that does not use pop-up technology (under the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations), instead allowing fishers to retrieve underwater traps using grapples. “We’ve set up a pretty complex system. But I think it is proving fruitful,” Shuman says, adding that the scope and scale has expanded significantly over the years. Under the Sub Sea Sonics EFP—one of the manufacturers of Bluetooth pop-up gear—they reported 217,633 pounds of crab landed in 2025, valued at $1,425,136.52 with an overall retrieval reliability of 99.2 percent. Getting into this market doesn’t come without a cost. “We estimate about $1,200 per gear string for a typical string of 20 traps that is about $60 per trap,” says Bart Chadwick with Sub Sea Sonics, adding that a deck box, transducer and tablet for the vessel costs about $2,000. “Things seemed like they went pretty well,” Shuman says. “But there’s a cost of entry.” This year, the use of alternative fishing gear in the crab fishery is coinciding with new regulations known as RAMP 2.0, a framework under which CDFW—alongside a working group of fishers, conservationists and regulators—assesses whale-entanglement risk, manages crab fishery start times and approves alternative gear. In other words, CDFW has more flexibility to authorize these gear types to move beyond experimental status, allowing for wider use in the Dungeness crab fishery. “By having multiple years of testing, it’s allowed us to get to this point that I would expect we will have an authorized gear this spring,” Shuman says. “This I can’t say for sure, but I think that’s highly likely.” But the use of pop-up alternative gear methods during the holiday season is still far away. “For a season opener, to try to get back the holiday markets, that would be a whole different dynamic that we would have to try to figure out, because there’s so much money at stake,” he says. “We’ve said, if you want the holiday markets, we can try to figure out how to get you there, but it’s going to look different.” This time of year, dock sales typically slow down without crab, according to Vicki Crow, who runs dock sales at A-Dock, adjacent to the Harbormaster’s Office in Moss Landing, near her boat Beticia. Right now she’s primarily selling halibut, sometimes groundfish and lingcod, usually to regular customers or those who text her after getting her number from the Monterey Bay Fisheries Trust. The commercial California halibut fishery is open yearround for hook-and-line fishermen and managed by CDFW, while the Pacific halibut fishery is federally managed by National Marine Fisheries Service. Crow is one of the only people running dock sales in Moss Landing. In Monterey at Wharf 2, there are around two, according to Laura Pratt, harbor assistant. Between dock sales and specialized local seafood brokers like Real Good Fish, Eelman of Solstice Restaurant relies heavily on these entities to decide what to cook, shaping the menu. He prioritizes ocean-to-table dining, regularly monitoring availability to find the freshest catch that’s in season. Customers, he notes, are becoming increasingly knowledgeable about what to ask for and enjoy. The most popular items at Solstice include dishes with hyper-local rockfish, black cod, petrale sole and lingcod. “Rockfish is always extremely popular,” Eelman says. “We had a sardine dish in June and July—it was extremely popular.” The sardine dish was a small plate with mighty flavor, featuring locally sourced smoked Monterey sardines marinated in escabeche sauce and paired with stone fruits like sweet nectarines, speckled with Espelette pepper. Not all restaurants are so ingredient-driven, and oftentimes, the ones that are can be at a price point reserved for special occasions. But those that focus on the ingredients provide a message consumers can take with them. “We don’t try to dictate the ingredients, and we certainly don’t try to dictate the season,” Eelman says, adding that they look at the product, time and place and build a dish around that. And consumer spending goes a long way, say fishers, especially in the absence of crab and salmon. “When you shop at these markets,” Deyerle says, “you help sustain the livelihoods of local fishers, encourage continued local fishing activity, and strengthen the overall economic health of the Monterey Bay fishing industry.” Local Catch Resources and where to buy local fish caught by local fishers. Monterey Bay Fisheries Trust: Find local catch guides including how to buy, store and prepare seafood; and a list of featured fishers in the local fishing community. montereybayfisheriestrust.org Receive notices of fresh fish sold off the dock from the Harbormaster’s Office in Monterey: lp.constantcontactpages.com/sl/CeNbzPb/harbor Text Vicki Crow for A-dock sales in Moss Landing: (831) 229-7373 Sea Harvest Wholesale Market: 7532 Sandholdt Road, Moss Landing. 9am-3pm weekdays and Saturdays. (831) 233-2305 Monterey Fish Co: Fish market and wholesaler located on Monterey’s municipal fishing wharf #2. (831) 656-9505 Follow fisherman Joe Lucido for Monterey dock sales: instagram. com/freshcatchmonterey Order online and pick up at Elroy’s Fine Foods: 15 Soledad Drive, Monterey. (831) 373-3737, elroysfinefoods.com Sign up for a community supported fisheries (CSF) box: montereybayfisheriestrust.org/stories/ csf-montereybay A worker with Real Good Fish walks through their packaging facility in Moss Landing, carrying a tray of fresh tuna to be packaged for consumers. A flurry of people come into Sea Harvest’s wholesale market to purchase the fresh, mostly daily, catch. They can purchase whole fish, fillets, oysters brought in from Washington and the Bay Area and more.
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