Reflections on Crabbing

I learned a new skill over the weekend: crabbing. Now, I'd been fishing a couple of times before in my life. Each time consisted of waking up at 5:30 am (not a morning person), and standing on the bank of a lake with a stick in my hand. On the end of that stick was a worm. And guess what: I didn't catch anything. Ever.

Allison and I ready to go catch some crabs.

So, on Sunday, when I was asked to go crabbing with Allison and her dad, I was a little unsure. The plan was to leave at 8:30 am, when the tide was low--low tide is helpful for catching crabs. Thankfully, an early morning thunderstorm pushed our expedition back until 10. Even when we got on the boat, I had no idea how to actually catch a crab.

We went out to the bay, to the marshes that surround it,  and up and down the creeks in it--or "cricks" as the Tuckerton-ites would call them. The best water depth for catching a crab is about 4'. To measure the depth of the water, a very scientific device was used--the "depth-o-meter" as Allison's dad called it. What it actually was, was an old oar about 4' long that we would use to find spots in the water with a depth of close to the top of the depth-o-meter.

Our catch--after we boiled them

Allison's dad knew to read tides and use that to figure out where the crabs would actually be. Once we found a good location, we'd drop the anchor and set up shop. The bait was used was raw chicken/chicken fat. The chicken was tied to the end of a string with a weight, and the other end of the string, about 4-5' long, was tied to the boat. We threw off 8 pieces of bait at one time. The crabs would eventually come along and grab hold of the chicken. When checking one of the lines, it was apparent that a crab was attached at the other end by the weight. While one person slowly and steadily pulling the crab to the surface, another person would scoop on the crab in the net, and you've caught yourself a crab. When all was said and done, we caught 22 blue claw crabs.

Cleaning the crabs

Before we got started, I was pretty nervous that we'd catch nothing. Everyone in the boat was a bit pessimistic that the tide was too high for us to catch much of anything. It took a few minutes for the crabs to start biting, which I'm told is a while in terms of crabbing. The first crab I caught was the first fish I'd ever count in my life and it felt pretty good. By the end of the day, I was even pulling the line in and netting the crab on my own. It's a pretty nice sense of accomplishment. After almost 4 hours and 5 or  6 locations, we brought in 22 crabs for dinner--plus about 10 or 12 that we threw back for either being female or too small. When we got home, we boiled and cleaned our catch, and put them in the refrigerator. Six hours after catching, we were having some of the freshest seafood anyone can possibly have.