Stone Crab Harvesting & Stone Crab Sustainability

We make sure to fish our Patas Stone Crabs following Florida’s Department Of Agriculture and consumer Services guidelines! Our stone crab harvesting only takes place between October and May to allow the crab population to regrow.

I compliance with Florida’s regulations and our own policies. We only harvest one of the crab’s claws at a time. This allows the crab to still defend itself against predators.

Once the claw is harvested, we release the crab back into the ocean so it can regrow its claws. In fact, it takes approximately 3 years for the new claw to grow to a legal size before it can be harvested again!

Following new guidelines, this year the claws we harvest have to be 2 ⅞” as opposed to 2 ¾” (and inch bigger than last year). It is estimated that this change will be equivalent to about 200.000 pounds of claws that will not be harvested this year, enabling an entire generation of crabs to grow for an additional year and ensuring stone crab sustainability.

Following the new rules, we’ve implemented a key change in the harvesting process involving box trappers. This year they’ve been retrofitted with a hole that allows undersized crabs caught in the trap to escape, greatly enhancing the crab population as well as increasing their growth rate.