The "best" of the three current options provides for growth in recreational crabbing without having to come back and fight over percentage of the State's share. That is the good news.

The bad news is that the "best" option falls short of providing sport crabbers with enough of the resource - especially as it represents days per week to crab. The WDFW's modeling puts Option A at 45% of the State's share of P.S. crab. That means non-tribal commercial harvesters will still take 55% in the short run. How did this occur?

First, the original six options did not provide enough permutations of daily catch limits and days per week during the summer season. Next, LE apparently pushed for a "one size fits all" mentality for seasons/daily catch limits in all marine areas. Due to the unequal distribution of crab within P.S. this approach effectively limits seasons and daily catch limits to those which would not cause the State's harvest to exceed its 50% (the other 50 % going to the tribes) in any one marine area. While not exceeding the State's share is critical there are other potential combinations that would achieve that goal. As is, this is essentially managing via the weakest link.

Now that there is a computerized harvest model it should be relatively easy for WDFW to run other permutations. I suggest those marine areas of concern (MA 10-13) have a four crab a day limit while others have a six crab daily limit and then see how many days per week those catch limits will support. Then compare that to results of another run using 5 crab a day for those higher abundance areas (North Sound).

My guess is that we could have a 7 day a week season and be somewhere between 50% and 57% of the total State share. I don't think that is an unreasonable place to start discussions given that the non-tribal commercials have had 67% since, what, 1985?