When the greatest catch isn't all it's cracked up to be

Michael Kelley pulls a handful of the day's haul from a vat of cooling water at Ernest Hamilton's Stone Crabs processing plant in Everglades City. You'd think they were getting rich.

After all, their industry produces the most sought-after treasure of the seafood aficionado: Florida stone crab claws, the black and orange booty of the Gulf's warm waters.

As far away as Las Vegas — and maybe farther — Collier County claws are sold and eaten fresh, within about 24 to 48 hours of coming off the boat. Even just a few short miles from their native waters, they're running about $18 a pound for the large, in Publix supermarkets up and down the southwest coast.

That all sounds good. The crabs are there and the catch is fair: On opening day, Oct. 15, Capt. Kit Johnson brought 1,000 pounds back to the docks along Camelia Street in Everglades City aboard his boat "Kit-Kat," named for his daughter.

Other commercial stone crabbers, all of them either Mr. Johnson's friends or relatives (which is the nature of this business), recorded catches in the hundreds of pounds, says Mack Collins, Mr. Johnson's nephew and a third-generation fisherman. His father, Richard Collins, and older brother, Richard Jr., both fish, too.

JIM MCLAUGHLIN / FLORIDA WEEKLY Mike Kelley dumps the crab claws as Rita LaRue spreads them out to separate the keepers from the rejects. At 31, Mack Collins has been fishing since he graduated from the school across the street. "It's a K through 12, and I went K through 12, like everybody else," he says, grinning. "Then I started this. There's nothing else I'd ever want to do." Except work more than he does these days.

Although he's licensed to run out 700- 800 traps, each weighing 50-60 pounds and made of either plastic or wood (they're the old-time traps), he can't work them all the time this year.

If he catches stone crabs every day, they just won't sell, he explains.

That's the worst part of Mr. Collins' job. "The best part is the sense of freedom, being on the water, and the brotherhood with other fishermen," he says.

But things aren't what they seem, in spite of the freedom, the water or the numbers, which look impressive.

In 2007, according to the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission, Florida's commercial stone crabbers harvested roughly what the oyster industry did — some 3 million pounds — while blue crabbers brought in 10 million pounds.

The blue crabbers grossed $10 million, or about $1 a pound, while the oystermen grossed $7 million, or about $2.33 a pound. And the stone crabbers averaged more than $8.80 a pound in gross sales, which amounted to about $26.5 million.

But that was then.

This year, the crabs might be there but the buyers aren't, at least not in the same degree.

"Sales are down," says Ron Brooks, standing in the open bay of Ernest Hamilton's Stone Crabs, a processing building less than 200 yards from the docks where Mr. Johnson, Mr. Collins and others keep their boats.

"We're catchin' 'em. But we're having a hard time sellin' 'em," he adds.

It's the economy, of course, and crabbers are not immune.

Eat at Joe's

An alligator floats 30 yards out beyond the dock where Mr. Brooks waits. A master of the impervious (unlike crabbers), the gator ignores Mr. Brooks, the boats tied off at nearby docks, the economy, and the price of fuel (crab boats require 100-150 gallons a day, depending on where they go, which means captains will spend hundreds of dollars a day just to get there and back). And the alligator couldn't care less about the fact that the crabs are out there in abundance this year, but the buyers are not.

Mr. Brooks, though, is neither impervious to a weak market nor entirely pleased. He manages the sprawling docks and tin buildings where crab claws are brought in, processed and shipped out.

His boss, and the property owner, is the high-tourist, high-dollar business known as Joe's Stone Crab, based in Miami. For that outfit, with restaurants or outlets not only in Miami but also in Chicago and Las Vegas, Mr. Brooks and his crew cook, cool, weigh and sort the catch harvested by eight boats. Most of those boats are in the 43- to 48-foot range; all of them are licensed by the FWCC to operate hundreds of traps each, on average, through stone crab claw season Oct. 15 through May 15.

Dressed in blue jeans, boots and a white T-shirt, Mr. Brooks looks at his watch and nods to Michael Kelley, one of the workers who will help bring in the great wire baskets of claws. Each basket stands about waist high, with a diameter of roughly 4 feet, and can hold 200-300 pounds.

"Friday night, they're staying out," he says simply.

That means the boat captains and their crews of two or three will bring in everything they can, since they won't be fishing the weekend — at least not for stone crabs. They'll sell their catch to Joe's through Mr. Brooks, and within hours or a day the sea's sweetest meat will be gracing stores and restaurants in Miami and across the country.

While Mr. Brooks waits for the crabbers to return — they start about 4 a.m. each working day — music begins to sound from the Camelia Street Grill next door, which buys its claws, along with grouper, pompano and whatever else might be available, from Mr. Brooks. On this evening's menu, four large claws offered as an hors d'oeuvre run $14.95, and seem to be popular among a small crowd.

If they can sell what they bring in to the dock, the crabbers will do ok — even though they're limited to working three or four days a week, simply because they won't sell more than they can catch in that time.

They'll be paid by the size of the claw they deliver, like everybody else all the way up the stone crab food chain.

At Hamilton's, says Brooks, crabbers get $4.25 a pound for medium claws, $6.50 for the large, and $9 a pound for the size above that.

Bart Stokes, who pilots his boat right up behind Mr. Collins at 5 p.m., points out that hurricanes, in particular, can damage the fishery, reducing the catches to weights that offer only barely survivable incomes. That happened in recent years, but now the country is enduring an economic hurricane of sorts — and that means the crabbers get hit, too.

"We're getting about half what we could get three years ago," Mr. Stokes says. "And the cost of operating has about doubled."

Family tradition

The history of fishing families here collides with the economics to produce a curve-ball variation on hard times, as well.

Standing in the open bay at Hamilton's, Mr. Stokes describes how that happened, while Mr. Brooks, a veteran of the Marine Corps and Vietnam who grew up in Illinois and arrived here 35 years ago, listens quietly.

First Mr. Stokes says, fishing families were hobbled when the government expanded the boundaries of the vast Everglades National Park and changed the rules about fishing in it for commercial fishermen.

Then, just over a decade ago and under huge pressure from the powerful and wealthy sports fishing lobby, Florida legislators established a net ban.

"They never came down here and looked. They don't know how it works," Mr. Stokes says. Like many others, he could no longer fish in waters that he, his father, his grandfather and two earlier generations of family fishermen had all plied for a living, especially for mullet.

There's also a 10-mile limit (on the east coast it's only 3 miles), which Mr. Stokes can't fish inside.

All of it takes him away from both his true calling and his talent, which is net fishing.

"But for something you do for somebody else, this isn't bad," he concludes, noting that he still net fishes within the limited confines of that work.

And if the government and what Stokes characterizes as "the liberal media" stay out of the way, there may be a sixth generation fishing on the water, too. Which would be good not only for the Stokes family, but for the public as well, since they'd get to eat the catch.

His 14-year-old son, a student in the school backed up to within 50 yards of their boat, the "Mine and Yours," fishes with his dad — sometimes all night. The boy is on the honor roll at school, as well, which suggests just how tough he is.

"I'm really proud of him," Mr. Stokes says.

Which just goes to show you one thing:

You can't count on the weather, you can't count on the crabs, and your sure-asshootin' can't count on the economy.

But you can count on the pride and grit — and the enduring tradition— of Everglade City's stone crabbers.