Naples' Stone Crab Season Starts Down the Coast, Ten Days Before the First Claw

On Saturday, October 3, about 18 boats lined up in Everglades City for the annual Blessing of the Stone Crab Fleet. This year was the event's 17th, and the Florida Stone Crabbers Association has sponsored it for the past three years. Nobody had harvested a claw yet, and no Naples restaurant had stone crab on the menu. Still, the season that ends on a plate near Fifth Avenue South had begun.

Naples' stone crab season is easiest to understand from the docks. The claws Naples orders come mostly from a working fleet down the coast, and that fleet's year decides how much reaches town and what it costs. Last season made the point clearly. Here is how the next few weeks unfold, starting in the water and ending on the plate.

The Calendar, Counted From the Water

The dates for 2026 line up like this:

The October 5 date comes from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's commercial rule. Traps may go in the water ten days before the season opens, but they can't be tended until opening day. The season runs October 15 through May 1, and harvest closes on May 2. One local photo caption this month gave the end date as May 15. The FWC's own stone crab page lists May 1, and that is the date to go by.

Ten Days of Soak Time, Then a Ruler

Those ten days are a legal head start. Crabbers set and bait their traps, and the traps fish on their own until the season opens. On October 15 the boats pull them, and every claw has to clear a size limit before it can be sold. The FWC minimum is 2 7/8 inches. Crabbers usually take the larger of a crab's two claws and return the crab to the Gulf, where the claw can grow back. A crab is more likely to survive with at least one claw left.

The traps changed in the last few seasons, too. Under an FWC rule announced in October 2023, plastic and wood traps had to carry an unobstructed escape ring 2 3/16 inches across starting in the 2023–24 season. From 2024–25 on, the ring has to sit in a vertical exterior wall of the trap. FWC researcher Ryan Gandy explained the reasoning in 2023. Undersized crabs kept in traps can die at rates as high as 13 percent, and in testing the rings cut the catch of undersized crabs by 24 percent and bycatch by 76 percent. Gandy said six years of testing with commercial fishermen showed the rings also cut down on sorting work on deck.

Not everyone has welcomed the changes. Crabbers interviewed by Florida Weekly said the larger minimum claw and shorter season cut into what they can sell. One estimated the rings cost about $2 per trap. Those fishermen work other parts of the state. The rules are the same for the boats leaving Goodland and Everglades City.

What a Good Year Looked Like Last Season

The 2025–26 season is the best recent example of how the fleet's catch shows up in Naples. As it wound down in April 2026, Chad Gillis of the News-Press reported that crabbers in the Fort Myers–Naples area had a very successful year. Some landed three to four times the hauls of recent seasons.

St. James City crabber Vincent Montella works the water off Lovers Key State Park. He described his catch going from about three-quarters of a pound to more than 2 pounds. He called it the first quality season since at least 2022, when Hurricane Ian tore up the Gulf floor. He also said the claws ran big, with most of the crabs in the large and jumbo grades.

Closer to home, Jimmy Grimm said his two family boats brought in between 300 and 1,000 pounds of claws a day.

"It's been a good season. The hauls are up, so that's good for the customer. When the hauls are up the prices go down." Jimmy Grimm of Grimm's Stone Crab in Everglades City told Bluewater Healthy Living in April 2026.

In early April 2026, market prices ran from $25 a pound for medium claws to $84.99 for colossal. Online retailers were charging as much as $107.99 for mega colossal. Those were late-season retail prices in a strong year, and the gap between the grades is the useful part. The colossal claw cost more than three times as much as the medium in the same market that month. A table that orders by size is choosing a very different price point.

Last season's prices describe a year when, by Montella's account, the Gulf bottom had come back after Ian. Whether that holds is something the boats will find out on October 15. The FWC keeps commercial landings data, including pounds landed, trips, and average dockside price, which can be searched by county and month. Annual totals are treated as final in July of the following year.

The Drive Down to the Docks

Buying from the docks is a short trip from Naples. Two fish houses are open for the season and worth the drive.

• Kirk Fish Company, Goodland. The family-owned market sits on Buzzard's Bay, across from Stan's Idle Hour and between the Little Bar Restaurant and Paradise Found. It calls itself home to nearly a dozen commercial fishermen and one of the few working waterfront fish houses left in Southwest Florida. Stone crab is its main catch, delivered daily and always in the retail case during the season. The market is open six days a week from October through May and reopens October 15 at 10 a.m. Bring a cooler, and the staff will pack your seafood in ice for the drive home.
• Triad Seafood Market & Café, Everglades City. Triad started as a fish house, became a wholesale crab and seafood market, and now runs as a restaurant and seafood market. It reopened October 1, 2026, and its all-you-can-eat stone crab service starts October 15. The café asks guests to call ahead to confirm stone crab is available.

Triad's request to call first applies all season. A rough day on the water means fewer claws at the counter, and anyone driving from Naples would rather learn that before leaving.

Closer to Fifth Avenue

For stone crab in town, three Naples spots list it for the season.

Swan River Seafood runs a seafood market at 3741 Tamiami Trail North, open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily, with local stone crab claws in medium, large, and jumbo. Captain & Krewe, at 629 8th Street South, is a restaurant, raw bar, and seafood market open 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily, with online ordering. Truluck's, at 698 4th Avenue South, serves dinner nightly and offers Florida stone crab in season.

Opening-day supply depends on the first pulls, so the same advice from the docks holds here. A quick call before you go confirms which grades are in.

Cracking the First Claw at Tin City

The Stone Crab Festival bills itself as its 17th annual this year. It begins Friday, October 23, at 5 p.m., when the first stone claw is cracked at Tin City, followed by live music from Phenomenal Animal. The festival continues through Saturday, October 24, and Sunday, October 25, with seafood, live entertainment, arts and crafts vendors, and discounted rentals at Pure Naples. A local event listing puts the kickoff at Tin City Waterfront Shops, 1200 5th Avenue South. Last year's festival ran October 24 through 26, so the 2026 dates fall one day earlier on the calendar and keep the same Friday-to-Sunday schedule.

The festival site points out that Naples and its neighboring communities grew up around the waterfront in the 1880s, and that until 1915 the only way to reach Naples was by water. The first claw cracked at Tin City on October 23 will have arrived the same way, eight days after the boats from Goodland and Everglades City pull their first traps.

If seasonal routines like this one help decide which part of Naples or Marco Island suits you, from a short drive to Goodland's fish houses to an evening walk to Tin City, Maria Oddy is glad to talk through how daily life on the water works in each community. Schedule a Consultation whenever you're ready.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.