There is a version of San Francisco crab season that lives in people's heads, and it is about fifteen years out of date. In that version the boats go out in early November, the crab is on the table by Thanksgiving, and the only decision is cracked or whole. What actually happens now is that the season opens late, opens in stages, and opens with conditions attached — and if you turn up at the wharf in November with a cooler, you will be buying crab that came from Oregon.
Crab dates move every year, and the good counters sell out by lunch on the days that matter. Ask Karpo what is landing this week, which boats are selling at Pier 47 tomorrow morning, and what to cook it in once you have carried it home.
The season stopped starting in November
For the last several years the California Department of Fish and Wildlife has held the commercial Dungeness fleet at the dock past the traditional opener because humpback whales were still feeding off the coast. Vertical lines running from crab traps to surface buoys are what entangles them, so the delay buys time for the whales to move south toward calving grounds off Mexico and Central America.
The most recent season is the clearest example. The central-coast zones were not cleared until 5 January 2026, and even then the fleet went out under a forty per cent gear reduction — fewer traps in the water, fewer vertical lines, the same boats. The first crab reached retail buyers on the San Francisco waterfront the weekend after that.
Practically, this means one thing for anyone planning a meal around it: do not book the crab dinner before the announcement. The opener is set by a risk assessment, not a calendar, and it has moved by as much as two months.
If you were planning to catch your own, read this part twice
The recreational fishery is managed with the same tool, and the restrictions are still live. A crab trap prohibition went into effect in Fishing Zones 4 and 5 — the stretch from Pigeon Point down to Point Conception — on 27 March 2026, and was extended into Zone 3, north of the Sonoma-Mendocino line, at 6pm on 22 May 2026.
At the risk assessment on 18 June 2026, the department kept all of it in place. Zones 3 through 5 are on authorised alternative gear, the pop-up systems that keep no line in the water column between hauls. Hoop nets and crab snares are still allowed, which is the part people miss — you can legally work a pier or a small boat with a hoop net while the trap ban is on. You just cannot drop a trap and walk away.
The pier where the price is lowest
Direct off-the-boat sales at Pier 47 on Fisherman's Wharf only became possible in January 2022. Before that, if you wanted to buy crab from the person who caught it, you drove forty minutes south to Half Moon Bay. A large number of guides still tell you to make that drive, because they were written before 2022 and never revisited.
Opening morning this year, the boat selling before sunrise was the FV Kvins, run by Captain Shawn Chen Flading, and the price on the deck was $11 a pound — individual crabs landing between $20 and $25 each. One buyer walked away with four crabs for $92. Sales open at 6am and people arrive before that with rolling coolers and cash, because cash is what the boats want. The 2025 opener produced four-hour queues; this year's was quiet enough to walk up to.
Half Moon Bay is still worth it, if you call first
Pillar Point Harbor has more than fifty commercial boats working out of it, and plenty of them sell straight off the deck. The catch is that nothing is displayed and nothing is signposted — there is no stall, no chalkboard menu, no queue to join. You walk the dock and ask, or you do the sensible thing and check first.
Two ways to check. The FishLine app lists which boats have crab that day and gives you contact details so you can reserve ahead. Or call the Fish Line on (650) 726-4382 and press 3. There is also a whiteboard outside the Harbormaster's office with the day's sellers written on it. Bring the biggest cooler you own; a Dungeness crab is not a tote-bag purchase, and most crews will hand over ice and a bag if you ask.
The counters that do not depend on the opener
Alioto-Lazio Fish Co at 440 Jefferson Street is the family wholesale operation on the wharf that also sells to the public, with live crab in tanks you can look into before you buy. The hours are the important thing and they run opposite to tourist rhythm: 6am to 2pm Monday through Friday, 6am to noon on Saturday, closed Sunday. Arriving at three in the afternoon on a weekend is the single most common way to miss it.
Swan Oyster Depot at 1517 Polk Street has been serving from the same room since 1903, and is the answer when you want someone else to do the cracking. It is a counter with a fixed number of stools and no reservations, which means the queue is the price.
Once you have it home
Live crab should be kept cool and damp, not submerged and not sealed, and cooked within twenty-four hours. Cooked crab holds in the fridge for about two days. If you are buying for a group, budget one crab per two people if there is a proper meal around it and one each if the crab is the meal — which, in season, it usually should be.
Practical notes
Check the opener before you plan anything: the date is announced by the state, not fixed by tradition, and it has landed in January two years running. Off-the-boat sales at Pier 47 start at 6am and run on cash. For Half Moon Bay, ring (650) 726-4382 and press 3, or check the FishLine app, before you get in the car. Alioto-Lazio closes at 2pm on weekdays, noon on Saturday, and all day Sunday. If you are crabbing yourself, the trap prohibition in Zones 3 to 5 was still in force after the 18 June 2026 assessment — hoop nets and snares only. And if a menu is selling Dungeness in October, it is not local; ask where it came from.
Tags: #SanFrancisco #DungenessCrab #CrabSeason #SeafoodNearMe #FishermansWharf #Pier47 #PillarPointHarbor #HalfMoonBay #SFFood #SeafoodSF #BayAreaEats #WinterInSF #FishMarket #SFRestaurants #EatLocal
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Ask Karpo first
Want to know whether the boats are selling tomorrow, which counter still has live crab at four in the afternoon, and how long the wharf queue actually is right now? Ask Karpo for the latest Dungeness crab updates, a route around Fisherman's Wharf and Polk Street that fits the hours, and a backup plan for the weeks when the season has not opened yet.
