Why Marathon's Stone Crab Has No Price Until the Boats Come Back

Two days before the season opened, Orestes Cordero was standing on the dock behind Keys Fisheries with a stone crab trap at his feet. It had concrete poured into the base and a line that would run up to a buoy. "Es pesada," he told KeysNews. It's heavy.

Cordero has worked that dock for 11 years. "First as a worker, now as an owner," he said. He runs a small license of about 50 traps, a fraction of what the big boats fish. His traps went in to soak on Oct. 5. Under Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission rules, nobody could pull them until Thursday, Oct. 15.

The season is a week old now. In Marathon, the price of a claw, the hour it reaches the counter and the biggest stone crab party of the fall all trace back to that same stretch of dock off 35th Street. The printed menu follows what the boats bring in.

The Menu With No Number on It

Shannon's Crustacean Station, the upstairs tiki bar at Keys Fisheries, doesn't print a stone crab price. Manager Kathy Perez told KeysNews the price depends on "how big is the Stone Crab," "how much is the pound" and "the cost of the gas." Bartender Lauren Barbush put it more simply before the opener: "I have no idea what the price is. Especially with the cost of diesel and everything now."

Cordero explained the whole system in four short sentences:

"Hay veces mucho, hay veces poco. Cuando mucho, mucha mercancía, poco dinero. Cuando poca mercancía, más precio."

Sometimes a lot, sometimes a little. When there's a lot of product, the money is low. When there's little product, the price goes up.

Brandon Geide, co-owner of Keys Fresh Seafood on Stock Island, told KeysNews that claws cost more at the start of the season when demand is highest. Prices drop toward the end, then "around Christmas time it shoots back up." He added that prices spiked sharply during the COVID years and are "slowly coming back to that normal." At Fishbusterz, Martin Rahming said the first haul of the season sets the market price.

So "market price" on a Marathon chalkboard is an actual number that changes with each day's haul and with fuel costs. The opening weeks of the season fall in one of its higher-priced stretches.

Why the Claws Show Up After Lunch

On opening day, the price is only part of the wait. Scott Dekle, vice president of Keys Fisheries, told KeysNews that the boats leave around 4 a.m. If their traps are 30 miles out, the crews ride for two hours before they reach the first one.

The kitchen works on that schedule too. Lobster is still in season, so it gets cooked first thing in the morning. "The crab won't be till later in the day," Dekle said. He expected the tiki bar to fill up by Thursday afternoon with people holding claw hammers, "hoping and praying that we will have some fresh crab to come bring to them."

Seafood houses up and down the chain describe the same delay. On Stock Island, Geide said boats usually come in late on the 15th, so his counter fills on the 16th "because we got to cook them." In Key Largo, Katie Hill of Eat Florida Seafood said her husband, Capt. Adam Hill, would be back around 1 p.m., "and we will have claws after then."

Hauling, sorting and cooking are the reason claws arrive later than people expect. That holds through every day of the season, opening day included.

Where Marathon's Claws End Up

Keys Fisheries is the anchor. Keys Weekly calls it the largest processor of stone crab claws in Florida. It also sits in the region that matters most for the crab. According to Keys Weekly, citing FWC, the Keys produce 40% of the state's stone crab harvest, about 2 million pounds a year on average. The Keys Fisheries property at 3502 Gulfview Ave. runs a retail market, a sit-down restaurant with a full bar, and online pickup orders. The menu lists stone crab from Oct. 15 through May 1.

A few other Marathon spots carry claws in season:

• Fish Tales Market & Eatery, 11711 Overseas Hwy, is a fish market and restaurant. Its website lists stone crab alongside fresh fish, shrimp and lobster.
• Castaway, at the end of 15th Street near mile marker 48, lists "STONE CRABS" at market price on its dinner and sushi menu.

Hours and supply change through the season, so it's best to call ahead. On a short-haul day, "market price" may also mean the claws have sold out.

Oct. 31: The Dock Turns Into a Race

Dock prices shape the season's biggest event as well. Keys Fisheries holds its 2026 Stone Crab Eating Contest on Saturday, Oct. 31. Entry is $75 for one person and $150 for a two-person team. In 2024, it cost $50 and $100. Each contestant eats 25 claws, and that plate costs more now. KeysNews calls this year's contest the fishery's 15th annual.

The format, as Keys Weekly described it in 2024, works like this. Contestants crack, clean and eat all the meat from 25 claws, and a tie means a 10-claw rematch. Entrants had to be 18 or older. That year the contest started at noon, and check-in closed at 11 a.m. In 2025, every piece of claw meat left behind earned a penalty.

Recent results, as reported by Keys Weekly:

Marathon's Tom Zajac has been on the winning team three years running, with Justin Hare in 2023 and 2024 and Ryan Beckett in 2025. Martinescu's 9:46 beat the 2023 record. He credited "a lot bigger of a spoon" than the one he used two years earlier. The contest provides industrial-strength shell crackers. Keys Weekly reported in 2024 that many locals prefer to smack the rounded part of the shell with the back of a large serving spoon or a butter knife. Entry fees in 2025 went to the Florida Keys Hope Walk.

If Your Own Traps Are Soaking

Some Marathon households set a few recreational traps off their own docks. The rules they follow came out of the same dock conversations. Dekle told KeysNews that organized fishermen helped shape the 2020 rewrite in meetings with state staff "because our catch keeps going down." The changes added an eighth of an inch to the minimum claw size, required an escape ring for undersized crabs, and cut two weeks off the end of the season in May. A state biologist had found that more than half the female crabs were carrying eggs in the first half of that month.

FWC's recreational stone crab page currently lists these rules:

• The season is open Oct. 15 through May 1 and closed on May 2.
• Claws must be at least 2 7/8 inches, and no claws can be taken from egg-bearing crabs.
• Traps can be set 10 days before the opener but can't be tended until it starts.
• Harvesters 16 and older must register their traps, which is free, and can use up to five registered traps per person, with trap and buoy identification.
• Monroe County trap specs prohibit round entrances and require a 2 3/16-inch escape ring in wood or plastic traps.

According to KeysNews, FWC also asks anyone who finds a tagged stone crab to leave the tagged claw on the crab. Report the tag number, date and location to 786-492-0137 or [email protected]. Reporters are entered in a $500 raffle. FWC Lt. Brian Sapp told the paper that this season's patrols use long-range cameras, night vision and underwater cameras, and that officers are watching for early harvesting. Half Shell Raw Bar manager Chris Day, a former dive master, summed up the etiquette on the water: "If it's not your trap, you don't get near it."

These rules are general information, not legal advice. Confirm the current requirements with FWC before you set a trap.

At Island Welcome Real Estate, we pay attention to the details that make island life work, from which canal docks can hold a few registered traps to where the afternoon boats tie up off 35th Street. If you'd like a home where stone crab season starts at your own seawall, we're happy to help. Start Your Island Search.