I took an almost 20 year hiatus from crabbing, during which I probably only soft crabbed a few times. Writing it now, that seems crazy for a boy who was hand-lining and scooping crabs off pilings by 2nd grade. With my parents and grandfather I ran trot-lines, traps, and soft crabbed by wading with a huge push nets and flanking dippers to catch escaping hard crabs. We crabbed often, and all over the Chesapeake Bay.
… but then I went off to college in Boston and outdoor recreation took a back seat while I chased my more cosmopolitan interests (in school for music), and built a life. Eventually I got back into fishing, then hunting, and finally- with three kids of my own and a burning desire to share my childhood- crabbing on the Bay.
Just some of the details of our crabbing expeditions over the past week, which were the first for me as an adult with my own gear.
I rigged up 12 floats with lines and engraved by DNR id into each. I got 6 cheap ring traps, 5 4-doored box traps, and had one of pop’s old ring traps.
The first time we crabbed them was when Corey came down for the day. We crabbed out near the first inlet into Janes Island from the sound side (near where we always go). I used the accumulated goose, duck, pheasant, grouse, teal, and domestic turkey necks I’d saved up over the past few years (I thought this was kinda cool).
It was clear almost immediately that the ring traps were garbage. They didn’t sink unless weighted. They got fucked up and couldn’t be fixed… we quickly bailed on them and focused on my box traps and Mom, Dad and Corey’s metal rings. We ended up with 24 the first day.
The second day Mom, Dad, and I took the boys and Chris out to the island to swima and crab. I ran my 5 traps off shore in the sound, and then in the back. We picked up 4 crabs that day but weren’t going hard. I rigged up a live box that I think pop would be proud of, that I floated in my slip to keep the crabs alive (with some stockie trout we never ate and I planned on using for minnow bait).
The last day Theo, Mom, and I set out to put out 11 traps just across the inlet from the docks. 1 got messed up right away, so we mostly ran 10. The cord broke on my motor after the first run and so I had to use dad’s kayak. Luckily he had gone golfing. We ran the traps for an hour and a half in the morning, and then again after brunch and ended with 22 crabs (having caught 17 fresh, and been given 1 huge crab by a family on a boat).
We also caught 10+ diamondback terrapins, which Theo and I found pretty wild. I don’t ever remember catching them in our traps down there.
Made crab soup starting with Mom’s recipe but with a few tweaks to try to make it more like Gram’s- turned out good and I ended up making a second pot after the second round of crabs.
Overall I’m pretty happy with the results, and excited to get out again- I wanna combine crabbing with scouting for sika deer next.
