All-woman Newport wholesale seafood buyer jumps into coast’s just-opened Dungeness crab season

By GARRET JAROS / Lincoln Chronicle

NEWPORT – Newport’s bayfront bustles with activity as Dungeness crab fishermen along the central Oregon coast work around the clock to deliver their catch dockside in time for the holiday season.

Also working around the clock are the crews who offload the live crab to waiting totes that are whisked away by the truckloads to markets near and far – including China where the crustaceans symbolize wealth and good fortune in the New Year.

As fishermen scramble to sell their catch – knowing full well the bulk of Dungeness are landed in the first month of the season which runs from December to August – they will find a new and unique buyer eager to lend a hand.

Wright Tide Seafood is an all-women run wholesale seafood dealer with a goal of bringing a fresh outlook and new opportunities for year-round employment.

“I am very excited to have a women-run seafood business in this town,” said owner Samantha Wright of Lincoln City. “I think the Newport bayfront needed another option from a different perspective. And not only being a woman but being a fishing wife and understanding that perspective.”

While offloading the catch and delivering to buyers is the job, Wright said the big reason she and her co-workers are there is to support the fishermen who risk their lives to make a living for their families.

“And I think being a fishing wife and being in this industry, I felt there was an empowerment for women to be involved and bring back the importance of really who drives this, which is our fishermen, our fishermen families and the community.”

Wright worked as the vice president of operations for a seafood company before deciding to branch out on her own. She and her husband own Wright Tide Seafoods along with the F/V Rylayla, which was the first boat on the scene and ready to assist when the F/V Valor III sank Dec. 14 three miles off Yaquina Bay.

The company, which opened with its first fish purchase in late September, now has 23 employees. Working alongside Wright are chief financial officer Lauren Sulkosky and dock manager Breanna Henderson.

When Henderson is not running the dock, she has her own mobile tuna cutting and processing business. She also recently received a Positively Groundfish grant to begin making dog food in honor of her dog, Jack, who died in March.

The two women hope to combine endeavors to sustain a year-round workforce.

“This business has lulls in between seasons so if we can support each other and have a labor pool where we support our employees so they are not going without pay, we will be able to give back to them in that way, because this type of industry doesn’t always have work year-round,” Wright said.

The industry is and has been historically male dominated, especially on fishing boats. Wright said women, who sometimes feel the pressure to prove their competence while having fewer formal mentorships or networking opportunities, bring a different perspective to the table.

“I think that problem solving and workforce culture and long-term business resilience is all intertwined with that,” Wright said. “We get a lot of comments from our staff about the feeling of family and how working for corporations for example they didn’t feel valued or heard. And that working for my company they feel valued and they feel heard.

“We care about our employees because without our employees we can’t do what we do here either,” she added. “So I think that being a woman-run business we come from a different perspective in that way as well.”

Wright Tide is currently working with some independent boats but has eight committed solely to them and more trickling in each week. The crew had offloaded 12 loads of Dungeness as of Monday.

Price settles at $4.50 pound

At the beginning of each Dungeness season, fishermen negotiate with buyers to get the best price for their catch. Those prices can vary along the dock and change day-to-day. Wright said they “came out of the gate at $4.50 a pound” this year.

Fishermen along the dock confirmed with the Lincoln Chronicle that there was some initial pricing at $4.35 a pound but that it quickly jumped to $4.50.

Oregon’s 2024-2025 Dungeness crab season was the most lucrative in history – $97.1 million – despite a delayed start and a significant drop in the overall catch from the previous year.

The Dungeness crab fishery is Oregon’s most valuable and the record-breaking payout to fishermen for 2024-25 can be directly attributed to higher prices paid from the start of the season – about $5 a pound – which climbed well above $7 before leveling out to a season average of $6.19 a pound.

The 2023-2024 season brought an overall payout to fishermen of about $90.5 million, with an ex-vessel start to the season of $3.79 per pound.

This year’s season opener was delayed from Dec. 1 until Dec. 16 from Cape Falcon near Manzanita south to the California border despite Dungeness meeting both meat and safe biotoxin level requirements along the entire coast.

The area north of Cape Falcon to the Washington border is scheduled to open Dec. 31.

The reason for the initial delay, according to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, was to allow crab in Long Beach, Wash to meet requirements – which they now have.

The tension around opening the entire Oregon coast at once is because if the Washington season is closed and the Oregon season is open, then Washington crabbers with permits for both states move their operations to the north Oregon coast, putting extra pressure on the fishery.

• Garret Jaros covers the communities of Yachats, Waldport, south Lincoln County and natural resources issues and can be reached at [email protected]