The word was out - locally caught crabs were back in town - and tonight there would be some on his family's table.

''The minute it becomes available, we go for it,'' said the retired internist, who estimates he has been making fresh Dungeness crab an end-of-year culinary tradition since moving to San Francisco in 1939. ''I picked a big one because they are sweeter.''

Consumers in the San Francisco Bay area rejoiced Monday as the first crabs of a delayed season finally made it to market, 13 days behind schedule.

The Central California Dungeness fishery officially opened Nov. 15, but crabbers in the region's three main ports - Bodega Bay, Half Moon Bay and San Francisco - refused to lay their traps until they settled a price dispute with seafood processors over the weekend.

Fishermen who work the Central California fishery, which runs from Monterey County to Mendocino County, said they were glad to be back on the water after spending days cooped up in meeting rooms as price negotiations continued.

In the end, the region's largest processors agreed to pay $1.75 per pound of crab, a compromise between the $1.85 per pound the crabbers originally asked for and the $1.65 seafood companies had said would be their highest offer.

The standoff left many people without the crabs they have long incorporated into their Thanksgiving feasts. It even prompted Guardino's, one of the seafood stands along the wharf, to close on Thanksgiving Day for the first time in 12 years, manager Michael Guardino said.