Natural Resources Police officers last week charged two Salisbury seafood stores with having undersized male crabs.
John Eric Crocket, 47, of Skipjack’s Seafood, 1204 Old Ocean City Road, received 13 citations after officers, conducting an inspection, found 294 undersized crabs in his inventory. Bobby Lee Leath, 56, of Fat Boy’s Seafood, 31278 Old Ocean City Road, received one citation for having 13 undersized crabs in his inventory.
Officers returned the crabs to state waters.
Crocket and Leath are scheduled to appear in Wicomico County District Court on Sept. 6. If found guilty of all charges, Crocket could be fined a total of $5,300. Leath could be fined $350.
A Wicomico County waterman was charged last week with poaching oysters from a designated sanctuary..
Hans Eric Kuntze, 59, of Nanticoke, was seen on June 28 dredging for oysters more than 150 feet inside the Nanticoke River Sanctuary by officers conducting surveillance. When Kuntze returned to the dock at Cedar Hill Harbor, officers inspected the seven and one-half bushels and found all the oysters to be of legal size. He was given citations for harvesting wild oysters from a sanctuary, harvesting oysters in a closed season, failing to have his commercial license available for inspection and failing to have a proper waste container on board.
The oysters were returned to the sanctuary.
Kuntze is scheduled to appear in Wicomico County District Court on Aug. 2. The maximum fine for the four violations is a total of $4,000.
Saturation patrols during the Independence Day holiday resulted in a number of arrests for impaired boating across the state.
John Michael Hampton, 47, of Elkton was charged with two counts of drunken boating and operating a personal watercraft after sunset after officers stopped him on July 2 in the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. He is scheduled to appear in Cecil District Court on Sept. 23.
Also on July 2, officers patrolling Deep Creek Lake in Garrett County charged three Pennsylvania residents with impaired boating. Timothy William Horn, 55, of Fayettville, and Kathy Jean McCleary, 49, of Chambersburg each received three citations for operating a vessel while under the influence. Eric Richard Guarino, 27, of Malvern, was stopped after officers noticed a person riding on the stern of his vessel. He received three citations for impaired boating and one citation for negligent operation.
All three people are scheduled to appear in Garrett County District Court on Aug. 17.
Seafood resellers are ripping off customers and buying from sketchy watermen that rape the Chesapeake by taking juvenile crabs. So much for the other post's comments about how watermen protect the Bay.
ReplyDeleteNot surprised about Fat Boy's.....Heath's attitude should get him a fine alone.....I am surprised about Skipjacks......I guess money trumps crab size. John get your act together, your business is better than this....really looks bad for you, now everyone will be watching what's in the box!
ReplyDeleteSkipjacks also takes independence cards for hot foods, which is against the law. Been in there and saw it, that's just wrong. State didn't give those cards to get hot crabs, shrimp. I'm working my butt of just to be able to buy some ole cold cheap fish, and ppl walking out using their state funded cards for hot crabs. Smh
ReplyDeleteIf Hillary got off then so should they, they din't get anybody killed !!!
ReplyDeleteThey sell raw food and steam it for free. It's all in the wording. Ask Hillary.
ReplyDeleteThe last time I ate crabs out in Delmar I measured the crabs and they didn't look legal to me.
ReplyDeleteno surprise to me, I have heard bad things about both places. I'm glad someone acted on it
ReplyDeleteGo to 1 fish 2 fish. I have never been disappointed there
ReplyDeleteEasy solution to the Independence Card problem, just hide their food stamps under their work boots. They will never find them and will starve to death.
ReplyDeleteHad many crabs at the red roost that were under 4" the other night! They said they shrank due to reheating over n over! I was like i cant believe you just used that as an excuse! They're far from what they used to be!
ReplyDeleteThe Red Roost had some pretty small looking crabs last time I was there I wonder where they are buying them.
ReplyDeleteWe usually get crabs from Fat Boy's but lately they haven't been that good. Monday we tried Skipjacks, they were actually pretty good. We ordered mediums and there were several in there that I'm sure could have passed for large crabs. All of them were meaty. Something I haven't seen in the past few years.
ReplyDeleteSo let's say I am Joe Shmoe at Crabs to go, it is 3 or 4 in the afternoon, the phone is starting to ring with orders, people are walking in and the watermen start showing up with crabs. Let's say one drops off 20 bushels. Should I be expected to stop taking orders and cooking to measure 20 bushels of crabs one by one. You would have to have a full time person at the loading dock just measuring crabs. Your prices would go way up. The watermen would be upset because they have to stand around while you re-measure crabs for hours. The crabs would die at a much higher rate because they are getting pinched by other crabs when you take them out of the packed bushels then repack them.
ReplyDeleteThe reality is that the distributors can not and should not be responsible for the size of the crabs. The state loves to fine and harrased the watermen and the whole industry but our problems are not from over fishing or irresponsible fishing, they are from poor water quality. Crabs are basically insects of the sea. The idea of overfishing the blue crab is about as stupid as thinking you could wipe out mosquitos if you spray too much. The 5+ inch crabs are only a tiny fraction of the actual crab population. The vast majority are little 1 and 2 inches that COVER the sea floor. The less adult competition, the higher the rate of survival for the smaller ones, and your next generation grows up to replenish the stock.
If you think that Watermen are ruining the Chesapeake Bay here is my suggestion:
Go down to the supermarket and buy a can of Phillips crab meat. The crabs are from Thailand, so you don't need to worry about over fishing in American waters. The meat is picked in Sumatra so you don't need to worry about distributors buying small crabs. You don't even need to worry about water quality. Thailand has found no toxic or carcinogenic chemicals in their waters, cause they don't check it. Then when you have successfully taxed, fined and regulated the seafood industry to death, you can pay me to stay home unemployed instead of getting up at 4am and going out in all kinds of weather to bring you affordable, sustainable and safe seafood for your dinner.
6:22
ReplyDeleteI would NEVER buy crabs from crabs to go. WAY over priced and a definite tourist trap. Never met such rude people in my life!!! 75 for a dozen large crabs!!!???? LMAO!!!!!!
6:22 here, by "crabs to go" I was trying to be generic but if you want to judge the seafood industry by a guy with a shed on the side of race track road then I guess I will have to call it Brand X crabs.
DeleteInstead of coming on here crying about the price why don't you find a local waterman to purchase from? For your $75, today's market, I can give you a whole bushel of #1s and $10 change.
CRABS SUCK!!! EAT DOZENS AND YOUR STILL HUNGRY. LOOK LIKE A 4 YO. SMELL LIKE CRAP. PAY TOP DOLLAR FOR THAT? ? NO THANKS!!
ReplyDelete6:22
ReplyDeleteI'm imterested. Where u located?
Instead of giving skipjacks and fatboys the heat they should have checked the vehicles of the felons coming up there with the ebt cards Probably would of had enough warrants and drugs that even Mikey could have showed up for a fox news report.
ReplyDeleteLeath is an A-hole,plain and simple.No surprise there.He attacked a customer.
ReplyDelete