A fishing crew in the Gulf of St. Lawrence hauls crab pots during the 2020 fishing season. - ContributedThat’s Jason Sullivan’s gut feeling about the upcoming 2023 snow crab fishing season.With prices of $6-7 to start the 2022 season, the crab fishery was worth nearly $1 billion in landed value alone.
An extra dollar a pound might sound like small change, but it would make a big difference to many enterprises, particularly those that don’t have a big quota to catch, he said. Ethan Butler, a crewman of the fishing vessel Bottom Dollar, unloads a catch of crab at the wharf on Southside Road in St. John’s during the 2022 crab fishing season in N.L. Keith Gosse/The Telegram - Keith Gosse
For now, though, it’s back to the usual price-setting panel process. That government-appointed board will meet Friday to consider the cases presented by each side.Loder said he couldn’t say too much about where the price might settle to start the season, but “the market has been set with $2.25 in the Gulf and the prices in Newfoundland and Labrador need to reflect where the market is. That’s about all I can say.
“We’ve agreed the fishery will start the middle of April and our position on that has not changed,” Loder added.That decision is expected, at the latest, next week.