A Slow Crabbing Season leads to a Season of Exploration!

The Holiday Weekend Crab Report

 

The Trip Out

Our goal was to be on the water by sunrise, but it was a slow start to our holiday weekend crabbing excursion as one of the deck hands was already 15 minutes late for departure. But it was July 5^th and everyone was in good spirits because of the holiday, so there was only minimal verbal harassment as repercussions for his tardiness; something that on another day may have been the topic of banter for the rest of the day! Once we were under way, we all knew that we couldn’t have asked for more perfect weather out on the water this morning with some of the scolding hot days that we have already experienced this summer. With cool air almost reminding us of autumn, and those late season fat river crabs, we made our way to a location that we have crabbed before but only about once every season, if not every other season. With only two other recreational boat trailers at the ramp, we figured that the waters would be wide open, but the one spot we were hoping to drop our line at was already being run by one of the recreational crabbers and bordered by a commercial crabber. Time to go explore!

 

 

The Setup

 It wasn’t long before we found another location that looked satisfactory, and thought it was worth giving a try. Although, once we started laying down the trot line we realized we weren’t on the edge-of-drop-off as we wanted. The 1,200ft of trot line ended up lying in a depth of 10ft of water to a gradual depth of 4ft of water. We made sure to drop our traps a little further out closer to the edge-of-drop-off where we may have preferred the trot line; the 20+ traps were set in 8ft – 12ft of water. All of the gear was in the warm 79 degree water by approximately 6:25am.

 

The Run

 The first run of the trot line was made under heavy glare as we were running in the direction of the sun rise. Regardless of sun glare we dipped a rather exceptionally sized 7”crab off the line within the first 200ft; reactionary hope was already in the air. Although, the hope was quickly smothered as we weren’t able to complete the full run without having to stop to remove a rather large branch hung up in the line. We would notice for the rest of the day that there was a moderate amount of debris in the water; perhaps from the storm passing through, or perhaps just the location. Once the branch was removed, we ran the trot line the other way, which improved the issue with the glare, but now we faced slack in the line that we eventually corrected with trying to reset it tighter by hand. With an incomplete first run we started to pull traps; the first run of the traps produced one keeper. Second run on the trot line produced another two large males, and a large female that was thrown back to river. Second run on pulling the traps picked up with about a half dozen keepers. Third run on the trot line was a skunk, with a couple keepers from the third run of pulling traps. The rest of the day the trot line was slow, with the traps modestly producing (modestly being relatively for such a slow season). Although some are blaming (or should I say predicting) the slow crabbing season on low populations of females, it would not have been evident where we were at as we must have returned a half dozen plus large female crabs back to the waters. We eventually picked up the trot line and the traps, to make our way back in. We reset our traps at a location closer to the boat ramp we launched from in hopes to add to our limited bounty before calling it a morning. We were only able to snag one more worthy size crab to add to the basket. We picked up completely after about 3 – 3.5 hours on the water, with our catch consisting of a few crabs over two dozen heavy keepers, ranging from 6” – 7”. This would be enough to keep us happy once steamed up with a cocktail of vinegar, crab seasoning, beer and water . . . at least till our next venture out!

 

 

 

 

The Experience

 With the way the crabbing season has been very slow, with low catches well under satisfactory, this wasn’t the first time of the season that we had decided to go back to locations that we hadn’t crab in several seasons, nor having to resort to trying to find that gut or edge-of-drop-off that we hadn’t crabbed before and predict that it may produce. It is a season like this that doesn’t allow you to have that negative hindsight on where you should have spent your morning efforts. Its seasons like this that allows you to go find new niches along the rivers of the Chesapeake. Perhaps you’ll get lucky and find one that’s producing, or even if it doesn’t produce it may be an enjoyable location to crab that you add to your repertoire of locations. So far this year it has been the season of why not try some old spots and completely new spots without the fear of missing out on your favorite spots that have produced over the last few seasons. Exploring is great, but with that said, bring on the crabs!