Such is life for the commercial fisherman. Good news always turns into bad (Oversupply of crabs ...):
An unusual abundance of crabs early in the season has flooded the Virginia seafood industry, dropping prices and sending watermen ashore to avoid spending more money than they earn.
Scott MacDonald, who owns Spots Fish Company, is paying watermen $10 a bushel for crabs, down from $30 a bushel when the season started on April 1. Some boats are getting no more than $8 a bushel.
"I didn't make any money today," Mark Sanford said Thursday after docking his boat at Spots and calculating his costs for fuel, bait, gear, insurance and his two-man crew. "Everything is going up. Everything but the price of crabs."
An increasing stock of crabs makes catching them easier, increasing supply and decreasing prices. Since the summer demand for crabs hasn't kicked in yet, the price of crabs stays low.
Is this the answer?
Some in the crab industry want state regulators at the Virginia Marine Resources Commission to lower daily catch limits to 25 bushels from 51 bushels. The commission could consider such a proposal when it meets Tuesday, said Rob O'Reilly, the deputy chief of the agency's fisheries management division.
The supply restriction would keep prices articially high but fishermen would still have incentive to put too many pots in the water, increasing costs and reducing the take home pay.
Many commercial fisheries exhibit this pricing pattern. A big catch drives down price. So another question, why don't futures markets arise for commercial fishing like they did for agricultural commodities? Just wondering.
