Good day crabbing!

[berettafan]

Put in about 6am Saturday at a new spot about an hour from home. Fantastic weather (cloudy and cool, slight breeze) almost the entire morning. Ran 28 traps (these are small 10x10" traps with chicken necks or bull lips) and managed a little over 3 dozen. Smallest were 5 1/4" (legal) and biggest were just shy of 7" (a nice sized blue crab for sure!).

Absolutely the most fun i've had in a boat. There were commercial guys all around as well but we managed to stay clear of them as the river is a bit wide where we were.

[stomachmonkey]

Send me a couple of bushels and I'll need some Old Bay to go with it.

[berettafan]

Good stuff aint it!

I understand you guys have blue crabs as well and they are dirt cheap in TX?

[livi]

Whats the preferred way of eating those creatures?

[masraum]

Originally Posted by livi

Whats the preferred way of eating those creatures?

Boil them alive, then eat. Yum! I've done it once before when I was 13 or so. I got tired of eating before I got full, but it was very yummy.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

those look so incredibly tasty! blue crabs are very sweet. what are your culinary plans?

brings back lots of memories of crabbing on the CT Sound when I was young. dragnetting too. get a ton of shiners, cut their heads off, flour, fry, eat like french fries.

[berettafan]

Steamed with old bay which is a seasoning. paprika, celery salt, etc and it is TASTY!

[Rob G]

What time is dinner? My family and i are on the way. ENJOY!

Rob G

Originally Posted by berettafan

Steamed with old bay which is a seasoning. paprika, celery salt, etc and it is TASTY!

[stomachmonkey]

Here's how you eat them.

Find a spot by the water, any picnic table will do.

Lay out some brown butchers wrapping paper.

Set up a couple of pitchers of beer, float a plastic cup full of ice in the pitcher to keep it cold.

Cook crab and coat em with a generous helping of Old Bay.

Place big heaping tray of aforementioned crab on table.

There are various methods of taking them apart, generally flip over and remove the tab from back, flip over and pull of top shell, clean away organs and stuff, flip again and split in half along seam on bottom, start digging for meat.

Drink beer while digging for meat.

As you are handling it the Old Bay will get all over your fingers, do not clean it off. The Old Bay will coat the meat as you retrieve it from the crab.

Drink Beer.

Repeat until all crabs and several pitchers of beer are gone.

[Looking_for_911]

I'm so jealous!

The only crabs we get down here you normally wouldn't tell anybody about and a trip to the doctor is usually in order!

Just kidding.... You don't Have to go to the doctor.

Those look marvelous!

Enjoy!

[jwhcars]

Ahh crabs ...our local Porsche club had a crab feast yesterday ....about 500 Maryland crabs,jumbo shrimp,burgers,dogs and plenty of german beer.
Berettafan you should come up next year to Lancaster Pa,we have a crab feast every August.

[berettafan]

oh man i'm there! love that area of Pa and will try to make a weekend of it.

just ran home for lunch and polished off the last half dozen. MMMMMM!!!!!

i have found that crabbing really is a blast. i enjoy being on the water but only when i'm actually doing something. just running up and down a river gets old for me. but the challenge of finding the crabs, setting a reasonably straight line (assuming the bottom follows) and motoring to perfect position so my co-crabber can pick up traps with little effort is really entertaining.

was also nice catching up with a buddy that i don't see much of these days. he's been driving 3+ hours to work halfway across the state for the past few months as things are slow locally and he just hasn't had much time for relaxing. it was nice to see him really enjoy himself and unwind.