This year's allowable harvest is 20.4 million pounds, including 18.3 million pounds of individual fishing quota shares and 2 million pounds for the Community Development Quota entities.

Greg White, price negotiator for the Inter-Cooperative Exchange, which includes the bulk of unaffiliated crab fishermen in the Bering Sea, said the harvesters were hoping for $4.35 a pound for A shares, the 90 percent of the harvest that must be delivered to processors who have processor share quotas under the federal crab rationalization program. “We were disappointed,” he said.

Still, the crabbers accepted the base price of $4.20 a pound from four Dutch Harbor processors, Alyeska, Westward, North Pacific and Harbor Crown.

The price for B shares, delivered to the harvesters' processor of choice, and C shares, assigned to skippers and crew, ranged from $4.34 a pound to $4.50 a pound.

That doesn't include bonuses that will come to harvesters from the end of December through February.

White said price offers coming out of Japan were a little lower than hoped for, particularly with crab fisheries in Russian waters unpredictable this year. Russian officials have cracked down on the rampant poaching of king crab from their waters. Heavy competition from lower priced Russian king crab last year affected prices of wild Alaska crab.

Still, White was optimistic that it would be a good season for Bering Sea fishermen.

“It is taking the markets a while to adjust to crab that is going to be more expensive,” he said. “Many consumers prefer Alaska king crab to a foreign product. The Alaska brand has some cache; it is perceived as the high end of the market.”

Even priced slightly higher than a year ago, wild Alaska king crab is still a bargain, he said. The five-year average wholesale price per pound for Alaska king crab is $10.06 a pound, and the average price this year is $8.82.

In 2003, before the big influx of crab from the Barents Sea, part of the Arctic Ocean located north of Norway and Russia, the average wholesale price for Alaska king crab was $12.19 a pound, he said.