But where are the crabs? Local crabbers, recreational and commercial, are stunned by the lack of legal-sized crabs in local waters this season.
Edgewater resident George Turner remembers floating along and scooping up doublers of the bow of his boat all day long.
He misses those times.
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16 comments:
Overfishing and the lack of regulations in regards to runoff for the tributaries of the bay lead to the situation we have today.
You reap what you sow.
Might just be where too many crabs are being pulled out of the bay.Crabs are a big deal for some reason.Crab feasts everywhere and crab houses galore.Would'nt over crabbing cause the same situation that commercial fishing causes? Seems like the rest of planet Earth has found out about Maryland crabs.Some secrets are too good to keep.
really can't have it both ways. they've let the rockfish proliferate. they are huge. and they eat lots of crabs. talked to a man saturday, he caught 27 rock down in ocean city in the inlet. 2 over 40 inches the rest 25 or more inches.. that's where the crabs are going.
This can't possibly from over crabbing because the Guberment passed a law preventing crabbers from emptying their traps on Mondays. Further, all kinds of restrictions and regulations were put into place to keep taxpayers from catching their own crabs. If there really is a supply problem, these people must not be following the rules.
The ones I've recently eaten have been extremely light. Hardly worth all of the work.
Crabs have many natural predators in the bay, sounds & rivers. The most voracious of these predators is the striped bass which there is a definite over abundance of at this time. If you ever catch a legal striper, be sure to check its stomach content and count the crabs and crab parts. You'll be very surprised by what you find. DNR needs to lighten up a bit on both the commercial and recreational take of these fish. T
stop catching the females
I know quite a few crabbers and seafood buyers, virtually all of them associate the severe decline in crab population with the storms that went through southern Pennsylvania this time last year and the subsequent Susquehanna runoff.
I'm sure that they have been over fished, and that the environment hasn't helped, either.
6 years ago, there was a crabber working around my creek in Easton every day. And he did really well.
The next year, he didn't do as well. Eventually he would stop in a few times a month, but he never filled his boat like the year before. He quit coming really early in the next season.
For the past 4 years, there have been enough crabs that you could go out yourself and get a half bushel or so. Enough for your party, but it wouldn't be commercially acceptable for your time and money.
This year isn't much better. A new waterman will poke his head in the creek and give it a go every few weeks. I've talked to two of them, and this is more or less a stop of last resort because their normal haunts are empty, too.
So take the pattern of pulling as much crab out of the water as you can for umpteen million years.
Add in the return of rockfish, the #2 preditor of crabs after man.
Then sprinkle in last year's hurricane dumping all that pollution into the bay via runoff, and this year's general wetness making the bay much less salty than usual.
There are more reasons for this year's harvest to be poor than to be good. And we can't control hurricanes and rain. But we could knock the rocks back a bit, and find some alternate employment for the waterman (cleaning the bay, planting oyster reefs, etc) to help them get by without pulling so many crabs. Nature will balance itself, and the crabs will have a chance to recover.
As for myself, I've only pulled crabs once this year for the family. I've skipped every chance to go to a restaurant to eat crabs. I'll probably go out a few times this fall to catch some rockfish. It's only going to get better if we all do our part to ease fishing pressures on the crabs.
where have all the flowers gone?
Have they considered the large amount of fresh water runoff the bay experienced from all the heavy rainfalls earlier this summer?
All the regulations in the world can't change the consistency of salt ....
Virginia is harvesting all the female sponge crabs. Most of the meat you buy in the can is sponge crab.
wow I never knew there were so many marine biologist on this site they know the answers to all of our problems
No one should keep sponge crabs!
There weren't many marine biologists in the 60's/70's but there were plenty of crabs.
@9:29, and what useful information are you contributing? This topic might be a little over your head, there is an article about coloring a few pages back that might be better suited for you.
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