Drifting Easy By Sue Foster

You got a little boat and you go out there flounder fishing every day in Ocean City,MD. Sometimes you feel like doing something different!  We did exactly that the other day. We grabbed a crab net, a couple packs of chicken necks, a half dozen crab throw lines and decided to do a little “chicken necking” for blue crabs.

The most important thing to know about the blue crabs is that the larger male crabs run close to the green marshes in 4 to 8 feet of water in the bays far away from the Route 50 Bridge in Ocean City. You can anchor up north of the Thorofare on the West channel to past the Rt. 90 Bridge. You can venture into Herring Creek or crab close to the green marshes north of the Rt. 90 Bridge. (The ADC map of Ocean City actually circles this area as “crabbing.”  A Creek area where the water is slightly brackish is always good.  In the east channel crab anywhere from the 33^rd Street north.

In the bay behind Assateague, anywhere by the green marshes going south past the Airport all the way to past the Verrazano Bridge and around by South Point or into Ayres Creek (if you live back there) is good. Stop and try a place. If nothing happens in 15-20 minutes, try another location.

 Female crabs tend to be in running water closer to the inlet. If you are only catching female crabs you are crabbing in water that is too deep, too sandy a bottom, or too close to the inlet.  This year, in 2010, crabbers ARE allowed to keep a mature female crab as long as it is not egg bearing in the Coastal Bays. (You are NOT allowed in the Chesapeake Bay.)  To me, the male crabs are much, much better to eat!

Anyway, we anchored up our little boat, unraveled half the 25 foot of line off the crab throw lines which are a wire triangle with a molded weight attached. We half-hitched the line around the wire triangle where we wanted it to stop. (The whole 25-foot of line is just too much if you are crabbing in only 4 or 5 feet of water!) Then we pierced on a couple chicken necks on the wire triangles. It’s like using a giant safety pin.  I noticed my husband was piercing them long ways so they didn’t dangle off the triangle and he was catching more crabs! 

We let the lines sit for 4 or 5 minutes and started slowly pulling them up. When the line was REALLY heavy, we knew we had a big rusty jimmy crab (male crab) and the other one of us would get the net. We did screw up a couple time and hit the crab with the rim of the net and scared it away. We were trying to reach too far with the net.  You need to get the net close to the line and under the crab without hitting it with the rim.  If you have a real little boat with a lot of stuff in it, sometimes it’s easier to net the crab yourself! We were playing around in Herring Creek which takes a real little boat because the water was very “skinny” (shallow).  My husband could see the water was 3 feet here, and 3 foot there, and then would see a little hole where the water got to 4 or 5 foot and this is where he would anchor the boat and we would do the best.

We saw some people crabbing under the Herring Creek Bridge and they were doing pretty good. They had traps which gives you a better chance to catch more crabs.  (There’s not legal parking here anymore though, so if you crab here, you need to get someone to drop you off. The Bridge is located between Ocean City and Berlin, MD on Route 50.)  When we were driving our little boat around after launching it at Gum Point road we noticed someone had put a line of crab traps out on buoys.  This is a legal way to crab also.  Crabbers are allowed 25 collapsible traps per boat if two crabbers are in the boat.  (10 per person if on the shore.)  You could also use a trotline which would be legal in the Coastal Bays in 2010 up to 600 feet long.  If you do either of these things, you want to be far away from boat traffic and fishermen!

 
           I am known to write about being prepared but in reality, not always so prepared! The one thing I forgot to grab at my store was a pair of crab tongs to grab the crabs.  We used some variety of kitchen tongs and they worked OK, but sometimes the crabs slipped away from us!  If we netted a questionable crab, we would drop it in the bottom of the boat and then my husband would pick it up with the tongs and lay it against the ruler of the cooler and see if it was 5-inches tip to tip. (A crab caliber would have been better to have!)

      
      If the crab was legal we put it in the cooler. I had the cooler prepared with a bag of ice spread out on the bottom of the cooler. Then I spread a wet newspaper (sorry Larry, it was an old Coastal Fisherman!) over the ice. The crabs would stay cool, but not fall in the icy water which would kill them. We made sure the crabs were dark side up. (Upside down will stress them out.) 

      
      We caught a couple dozen really nice crabs and took them home to cook them. Most people put the crabs in the steamer pot with some water and a little vinegar in the bottom, sprinkle them with Old Bay, and steam them 25 minutes once they get to steaming. We have discovered in VA a different way to do it you may want to try. We clean the crabs first. Take off the shell, apron, dead man’s fingers, and eye balls. (You can stab them at the point of the apron to kill them first.)  Hose out the entrails, and then steam them cleaned!  Cook them right away if you do this or they will get mushy.  We sprinkled the layers with Old Bay and black pepper and steamed them about 20 minutes once the water got to a rolling boil. I’m told it’s very important to cook them right away if you clean them. The neat part is that it’s less mess when you eat them, and the spice gets right on the crab meat and the left over crabs last longer in the refrigerator.  Hint: Either way, when the crabs are done, take off the lid so they can breathe.  Then dump them out on newspaper (sorry Larry!) and let them sit 5-10 minutes before eating them!

Good crabbing….