Crabs - Appears To Be Steady

[dems4me]

Originally posted by Tenknots
Only male Dungeness crabs in the PNW can be taken. I'd never heard of female crabs eaten until I moved here. I think taking only male crab would eventually solve the problem. Having a moratorium on crab harvest for one year is a great idea, but you'd have some unhappy (and broke) fisherman.

I agree -- I think there's plenty of room for compromise -- it doesn't have to be an all or nothing scenario.

 

[pixiegirl]

B and I will be having crabs for dinner Friday night. It's date night without the little one.



my life is so normal and domesticated now....

 

[sleuth]

Originally posted by pixiegirl
Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more
than standing in a garage makes you a car.

One of my favorite sayings is from Fight Club:
"Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken."

 

[dems4me]

Originally posted by pixiegirl
B and I will be having crabs for dinner Friday night. It's date night without the little one.



my life is so normal and domesticated now....

Are you going out to eat or carry out on the crabs? If its carry out -- there's a great crab shack up the road from you where I used to get mine from.

 

[pixiegirl]

Originally posted by dems4me
Are you going out to eat or carry out on the crabs? If its carry out -- there's a great crab shack up the road from you where I used to get mine from.

Where? I was gonna pick up some stone claws from Thompson's on my way home and we were thinking Grinders for the regular crabs. But if you know of something good down that way I'm all ears.

 

[dems4me]

Originally posted by pixiegirl
Where? I was gonna pick up some stone claws from Thompson's on my way home and we were thinking Grinders for the regular crabs. But if you know of something good down that way I'm all ears.

I don't know if they are open yet, but Docs across from the McDonalds has great crabs -- and great seasoning. They always through in a couple extra -- if you are a regular like I became from being addicted to them... I don't know if they have stone claw -- you may want to call -- they have crab legs, lobster, seafood, etc... I'm not sure that I have his number anymore now that I moved cross town.

 

[Katie]

Re: Re: Crabs - Appears To Be Steady

Originally posted by sleuth14
Would it benefit or hurt the crabbing industry to sit out one season? I'm of the mind that if the problem is bad enough, perhaps the crabbing industry should take some short term losses (if they can afford it) to ensure their livelihood for the long-term. :shrug:

That would be like them closing Pax River base for a year and telling us that in order to protect blah blah(fill in the blank), the base has to be closed for a year. That is your livilihood. There are people called "Waterman" that make their living on the bay. People that live on Smith and Tangiers Island they are waterman, it is their livilhood!

 

[sleuth]

Re: Re: Re: Crabs - Appears To Be Steady

Originally posted by Katie
That would be like them closing Pax River base for a year and telling us that in order to protect blah blah(fill in the blank), the base has to be closed for a year. That is your livilihood. There are people called "Waterman" that make their living on the bay. People that live on Smith and Tangiers Island they are waterman, it is their livilhood!

True... but how difficult is it to switch from selling crab to selling some other type of seafood? It seems to me it would be an easy switch, more on par with "You have to work in this building on the base instead of that building on the base, but you'll be doing basically the same thing", but then I don't know anything about crabbing.

 

[dems4me]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Crabs - Appears To Be Steady

Originally posted by sleuth14
True... but how difficult is it to switch from selling crab to selling some other type of seafood? It seems to me it would be an easy switch, but then I don't know anything about crabbing.

Lets see... its football sunday and you want to eat crabs.. would you really be satisfied with white perch or catfish instead? Crabs rock!!!!

 

[sleuth]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Crabs - Appears To Be Steady

Originally posted by sleuth14
True... but how difficult is it to switch from selling crab to selling some other type of seafood? It seems to me it would be an easy switch, more on par with "You have to work in this building on the base instead of that building on the base, but you'll be doing basically the same thing", but then I don't know anything about crabbing.

Not to mention from everything that I've heard, these fisherman rake in hefty sums of money. Hopefully they would have planned for the day when they might have to "invest" in their own business by taking short term losses for long term gains.

And... like someone mentioned above, it doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing thing. Increasing size limits, limiting harvests, or collecting only males are a few options.

 

[Katie]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Crabs - Appears To Be Steady

Originally posted by sleuth14
Not to mention from everything that I've heard, these fisherman rake in hefty sums of money. Hopefully they would have planned for the day when they might have to "invest" in their own business by taking short term losses for long term gains.

And... like someone mentioned above, it doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing thing. Increasing size limits, limiting harvests, or collecting only males are a few options.

Oh they do fish and other stuff. They might make boatload of money, but they do own their own business so they have business expenses that add up for example:

Boat care and maintance
Gas
Crab pots maintenance
bait
paying the employees to help with the catching of the crabs
commerical crab lisence which is NOT cheap at all

I am sure there are others that I just can't think of right now

I know a couple of waterman, and they are not rich by any means at all.

 

[sleuth]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Crabs - Appears To Be Steady

Originally posted by dems4me
Lets see... its football sunday and you want to eat crabs.. would you really be satisfied with white perch or catfish instead? Crabs rock!!!!

Let's see... it's football sunday 10 years from now, and there are no crabs, unless you want to pay $200 for each one.

How much do crabs rock now?

 

[dems4me]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Crabs - Appears To Be Steady

Originally posted by sleuth14
Let's see... it's football sunday 10 years from now, and there are no crabs, unless you want to pay $200 for each one.

How much do crabs rock now?

I was the one dear that suggested its not all or nothing... I think what we need to do is focus on conserving the crab population not just up and close the bay to crabbing.... for a year, change the size limits, especially for soft shell/peelers and make the males have a larger keep size.

 

[dems4me]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Crabs - Appears To Be Steady

Originally posted by sleuth14
Let's see... it's football sunday 10 years from now, and there are no crabs, unless you want to pay $200 for each one.

How much do crabs rock now?

You ever hear of the term -- crabs and beer?
It sounds soo much better than lets see perch and beer, catfish and beer, etc....

 

[Ken King]

They do increase the size limit later in the season, they have restricted the catching of the crabs and most importantly the estimate from the dredging says that the catch should be the same as last year, which to me shows a stabilization. Why not just leave it alone and see how it looks next year? If the projection drops then that is when they should take some action.

One of the problems is that you can mandate and restrict Maryland crabbers to the hilt, but unless Virginia does the same it is useless.

 

[dems4me]

Originally posted by Ken King
They do increase the size limit later in the season, they have restricted the catching of the crabs and most importantly the estimate from the dredging says that the catch should be the same as last year, which to me shows a stabilization. Why not just leave it alone and see how it looks next year? If the projection drops then that is when they should take some action.

One of the problems is that you can mandate and restrict Maryland crabbers to the hilt, but unless Virginia does the same it is useless.

this is true... although I was born and raised in Virginia.. that does bother me that they are lax on their crabbing regulations. As for the increase in size limit later in the season, that's kind of a joke.. its by something like 1/4 of an inch different... boat hits a little wake, you jostle the ruler on accident and whammo... you now have one that measuers 5 1/2 ....

 

[Ken King]

Originally posted by dems4me
this is true... although I was born and raised in Virginia.. that does bother me that they are lax on their crabbing regulations. As for the increase in size limit later in the season, that's kind of a joke.. its by something like 1/4 of an inch different... boat hits a little wake, you jostle the ruler on accident and whammo... you now have one that measuers 5 1/2 ....

And when the DNR cop measures them and you are now short the 1/4 inch you get to pay the fine and maybe give up that boat.

 

[dems4me]

Originally posted by Ken King
And when the DNR cop measures them and you are now short the 1/4 inch you get to pay the fine and maybe give up that boat.

I've never seen DNR out their or on the peir measuring... Don't worry mine are way over the limit -- no risk on my end.

 

[jazz lady]

Originally posted by Ken King
One of the problems is that you can mandate and restrict Maryland crabbers to the hilt, but unless Virginia does the same it is useless.

I think you hit the nail on the head with this statement. Virginia controls the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. If you allow things in Virginia you don't allow here, it allows them to decimate the population even before it gets into the rest of the Bay.

 

[Ken King]

Originally posted by dems4me
I've never seen DNR out their or on the peir measuring... Don't worry mine are way over the limit -- no risk on my end.

I've lived within a mile of 3 DNR officers for almost all the time I have been in St. Mary's (one, that just retired, is my next door neighbor) and I have run into them on the river, had my catch (and boat ) inspected, have watched them ticket others and have seen an impound resulting from the inspections. While it might not happen often, it does happen.