Stone crab season opens on Oct. 15
Recreational and commercial claw harvest of Florida’s famous stone crab opens in state and federal waters on Oct. 15.
The season will remain open through May 15, 2016.
To ensure this valuable resource is available for generations to come, take care when removing crab claws, and follow all protective management guidelines for stone crab harvest.
To be harvested, stone crab claws must be at least 2 3/4 inches in length when measured from the elbow to the tip of the lower immovable portion of the claw.
You can view a video on how to properly remove the claw, and increase the likelihood of survival of the released crab on YouTube (search for how to harvest a stone crab claw).
Claws may not be taken from egg-bearing females, who are identifiable by the orange or brown egg mass, also known as a sponge, visible on the underside of the crab when it is picked up or turned over.
Recreational harvesters can use up to five stone crab traps per person. Stone crabs may not be harvested with any device that can puncture, crush or injure a crab’s body. Examples of devices that can cause this kind of damage include spears and hooks.
Recreational and commercial traps may be baited and placed in the water 10 days prior to the opening of the season, but may not be pulled from the water for harvest purposes until Oct. 15.
Traps not being fished should be removed from the water to avoid ghost fishing, a process in which marine species get caught in the trap for extended periods of time and are not harvested.
The use of round entrances (known as throats or funnels) will no longer be allowed on stone crab traps used in state or federal waters off Collier, Monroe and Miami-Dade counties. The rule change went into effect on Oct. 5.
The changes also require the rectangular or rounded rectangular entrances typically used in stone crab traps be no larger than 5 1/2 x 3 1/8 inches at the most narrow point of the opening. Stone crab traps being used in other areas of the state may have an entrance that is 5 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches.
Harvesters are encouraged to take only one claw, even if both claws are of legal size. That allows the released crab to be better able to defend itself from predators. A crab that is returned to the water with one claw intact is able to obtain more food in a shorter amount of time and therefore regrow its claw faster.
The recreational daily bag limit is one gallon of claws per person or two gallons per vessel, whichever is less.
Stone crab regulations are the same in state and federal waters.
For more information on harvesting stone crabs visit MyFWC.com/fishing. Click on “saltwater.”