A working waterfront in the middle of the Keys
Marathon covers the stretch from Long Key to the Seven Mile Bridge, roughly mile markers 47 to 61, right in the middle of the island chain. Visitors know it for Sombrero Reef, the Turtle Hospital, Crane Point's hammock trails and the old Seven Mile Bridge. Locals know it as a fishing town that never stopped being one.
The center of that trade is Keys Fisheries on the bay side, which started in 1967 with a fleet of six boats. A Keys Weekly visit in 2020 found it handling more lobster than any other facility in Florida, about a million pounds in a good year, and ranking first or second in the state for stone crab. It also supplies much of the seafood served at the Marathon Seafood Festival.
Stone crab is the claw you eat cold, and the reason is practical. At Keys Fisheries the crabs are cooked within an hour of reaching the dock, then chilled and sorted by size the next day. Vice president Gary Graves told Keys Weekly that if a raw claw gets cold, down around 50 degrees, the meat sticks to the shell and you cannot scrape it out. That is why claws are almost always sold already cooked.
The rules on the claw
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission sets the season from October 15 through May 1, closed from May 2. Only the claws may be taken, and a claw must measure at least 2 7/8 inches. Recreational crabbers can fish up to five registered traps and keep a gallon of claws per person or two gallons per boat, whichever is less.
Taking both claws is legal if both are legal size, but the FWC notes that a crab left with one claw can feed faster and regrow the missing one sooner. Stone crabs regenerate claws, which is what makes this a renewable fishery when people handle it with care.
