State fisheries managers cut short this summer’s Southeast Alaska commercial Dungeness crab season by six days because initial harvest projections fell below the threshold to allow a full season. But now, after determining that a high number of softshell crabs contributed to low harvest projections, managers have opted to open fall Dungeness fishing for its full length.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced on Aug. 18 that the fall Dungeness crab season in Southeast will proceed for its standard duration, reversing what could have been a 50% reduction in fishing time for most of the region.

The Dungeness crab fishery will reopen for the fall/winter season on Oct. 1.

The decision hinged on an analysis of softshell crabs — newly molted crabs with shells too soft for market — that fishermen encountered during the first week of the summer season in June.

“We determined that about 11% of the legal-size crab that were caught were too soft to bring in,” said Joe Stratman, a Petersburg-based shellfish biologist for Fish and Game.

The summer season, which began June 15, was initially projected to produce 2.21 million pounds of crab, just 2% shy of a full harvest under the Southeast Alaska Dungeness Crab Management Plan.

That triggered the early closure of the summer season on Aug. 9.

However, port sampling, fish tickets and interviews with permit holders who fished during the first week revealed that fishermen were leaving significantly more softshell crab on the grounds than in previous years.

“The year before, soft crab was more like people were leaving about 5% on the grounds — it was 11% this year,” Stratman said during a recent interview. “We took that above-average amount of (softshell) crab … and plugged that back into the model.”

“Some years there’s very little soft crab that’s caught in the fishery,” Stratman explained that in the past decade, the percentage of legal-size crab left on the grounds due to soft shells has ranged from 3% to 28%.

Dungeness crabs molt annually when approaching legal harvest size, with males molting from February through early July and females molting in August and September when mating occurs. After molting, crabs require time to harden their shells before becoming marketable.

Several factors can influence molting timing and shell hardening, including water temperature, salinity and competition for resources among crab populations.

The geographic distribution of softshell crab also varies significantly within the region. While some areas like the south end of the Stikine River reported few softshell encounters, other locations such as Seymour Canal reported more softshell presence.