October to January is generally the optimal season for fishing and harvesting all crab species for food, a Southern Living Magazine article stated. This is when most individual crabs are at their largest and when populations are at their peak. A major crabbing industry is centralized in the Bering Sea in Alaska. Its snow crab harvest in particular brings in approximately 132 million dollars each year, according to a Time article. This October, however, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game determined that the number of crabs in the Bering Sea this season was too low to open the fishery.