"We're excited even if it's 19 bags," Stephanie Barber told The Apalachicola Times in early October. Her family owns Barber's Seafood in Eastpoint, one of the few certified processors left in Franklin County. She was talking about the season ahead. Each commercial oysterman on Apalachicola Bay can take at most 19 bags of wild oysters between Oct. 1, 2026 and Feb. 28, 2027.
The Florida Seafood Festival returns to Battery Park on Friday, Nov. 6 and Saturday, Nov. 7. It is the first festival since the 2020 closure to fall inside an open wild-harvest season. The bay is open, but the season is smaller than the one that reopened it in January, and the gap is biggest during festival week.
A longer season with about half the oysters
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission approved a revised management plan at its November 2025 meeting. It did not extend the full closure. The first reopening ran from Jan. 1 through Feb. 28, 2026, and commercial endorsement holders shared roughly 4,700 bags. According to FWC's commercial oyster page, the bay then closed again through Sept. 30 and reopened Oct. 1 for weekday commercial harvest.
Comparing the two seasons shows how much the allowance shrank:
| Jan. 1 – Feb. 28, 2026 | Oct. 1, 2026 – Feb. 28, 2027 | |
|---|---|---|
| Length | Two months | Five months |
| Reefs open | Four, including East Hole | Three |
| Bags allocated | 4,726 | 2,560 |
| Commercial endorsements | 152 issued | Fewer than 130 |
| Most bags per commercial harvester | 31 | 19 |
The fall season runs two and a half times as long as the winter one and carries a little more than half the bags. Spread across five months, that works out to far fewer oysters per week than came off the bay last January.
Why only three reefs made the cut
FWC opens a reef only if it holds at least 400 bags of legal-sized oysters per acre. This season, three reefs met that bar: RESTORE Peanut Ridge, RESTORE Cat Point Spur and NFWF Cat Point. Their commercial limits are 1,029, 557 and 847 bags. One bag is 60 pounds, or two 5-gallon buckets.
East Hole was the fourth reef open last winter. WFSU reported in August that it fell short of the harvest threshold and would stay closed this season. FWC's Morgan Eason said that meant "fewer open reefs and lower annual harvest levels."
For a sense of scale, WFSU's report notes that the bay once supplied more than 90 percent of Florida's oysters, and that its reef area fell from 2,000 acres to fewer than 100. The state's 2026-2027 budget, which took effect July 1, sets aside $11 million of a $15 million oyster-restoration line for Apalachicola Bay. Watermen and regulators also disagree about how the restoration is being done. Wayne Williams of the Seafood Work And Watermen's Association told The Apalachicola Times that the large rock used on restored areas can't be worked with tongs, and that harvesters have asked for smaller material.
What a tag is worth on the water
Every bag taken from the bay this season has to carry a tag. Endorsement holders had to claim their reef-specific tags in person at FWC's Carrabelle office, starting Sept. 22. One tag allows one bag, and tags can't be sold or traded. There is no daily bag limit. A harvester can use the tags on any weekday in the season, but once they're used up, that harvester is done.
The Times did the math in its Oct. 6 report. Barber's was paying $65 a bag, so 19 bags comes to about $1,235 for the entire season. "Nineteen bags is nothing," Williams told the paper. "I can seriously catch that many bags in two days by myself." Last winter's catches back up his point. In January, WUWF reported harvesters bringing in seven, 10 and 12 bags on single trips.
The recreational share is smaller still. FWC's recreational shellfish page lists 127 selected permits. Each permit gets one tagged bag, harvest is limited to weekends, and it uses the same three reefs. Last winter, recreational harvesters accounted for 52 bags. These summaries are general information, not legal advice. Anyone holding a permit should check FWC's pages directly for the rules on their own tag.
The festival lands before the busy stretch
The season got off to a quiet start. The Times reported that rough weather kept boats in during the first week, and Barber said many harvesters were waiting for cooler weather. She expects harvesting to pick up ahead of Thanksgiving, when holiday demand peaks. She added that eight months of growth since the winter season have likely put more oysters on the reefs. With a fixed number of tags, a harvester has every reason to save them for that holiday demand, and the festival comes about three weeks earlier.
The bay also has to stay open from one day to the next. FWC notes that the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services can temporarily close the shellfish harvesting area around the open reefs after heavy rain, high river levels or harmful algal blooms. Current status is posted on the FDACS Shellfish Harvesting Area page.
The festival schedule doesn't say where the oysters in the shucking and eating contests come from. The rest of the weekend follows the official schedule:
- Friday, Nov. 6, 10 a.m. The park opens with no admission charge.
- Friday, 4 p.m. Blessing of the Fleet at Riverfront Park.
- Friday, 4:45 p.m. King Retsyo and Miss Florida Seafood Luci Paul arrive.
- Friday, 8 p.m. The Ashley Morgan Band headlines after live music from 5 to 7:30 p.m.
- Saturday, Nov. 7, 8 a.m. The Redfish Run starts. Registration opens at 7 a.m. on the front steps of the Gibson Inn.
- Saturday, 10 a.m. Gates open with $10 admission and free entry for children under 12. The parade starts on Highway 98, with Apalachicola Police Chief Chase Richards as grand marshal.
- Saturday, 1 to 5 p.m. Blue Crab Races for kids under 12, sponsored by Fishermans Choice.
- Saturday, 1 p.m. and 1:15 p.m. The oyster shucking contest, followed by the oyster eating contest.
- Saturday, 8 p.m. Kaleb Austin headlines. The park closes at 10:30 p.m.
The Blessing of the Fleet comes first. This year, part of that fleet is working the bay under its first fall harvest season since 2020.
Where the bay's oysters have shown up this year
Last winter's reopening gives some idea of where tagged bags end up. WFSU described the chain from boat to oyster house, then out to seafood markets and restaurants as 30-pound boxes. In January, WUWF reported that Barber's Seafood had bought, processed and sold about two-thirds of the wild harvest reported up to that point, and that wild Apalachicola oysters had grown to about 70 percent of its business. At Island View Seafood's retail market, sales in the first week after the reopening topped its sales for a full quarter of 2025.
Red Pirate Family Grill and Oyster Bar in Eastpoint served raw Apalachicola oysters by the dozen during that season, according to WFSU's February feature. The same report put the price of a dozen raw oysters at Apalachicola restaurants at $24.99, and a 30-pound box at markets at $75 when available. Those prices date from February. With fewer bags per week this fall, menus and market cases will depend on how many tags get used in a given week.
Farmed oysters fill part of the gap. Water Is Life Oysters, run by Xochitl Bervera and Kung Li, grows on a 2.5-acre farm in Rattlesnake Cove in Apalachicola Bay. Civil Eats reported that the farm helped cover the years of the wild closure and sold directly to the local community. In October, WFSU reported that Franklin County's oyster farms are in Apalachicola Bay and Alligator Harbor.
Barber noted that in 34 years in business, even when the bay was at its most productive, her family has "never relied 100 percent on the bay." For the rest of this season, a wild Apalachicola oyster on a plate will have come from one of three reefs and one of a limited supply of tags.
At Beach Properties Real Estate Group, we follow the bay as closely as the market, because the oyster season is part of what makes Apalachicola feel like home. We'll see you at Battery Park on Nov. 6 and 7. If you'd like to talk about life in Apalachicola or Eastpoint, please contact us.
