Best Practice or Superstition . . .

Who Cares When Its a Sunny Day Out on the Water!

Our last trip out was during the early afternoon on a sunny 76°F day with only a few clouds in the sky. We couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful afternoon to be out on the water, or as temperate weather in late summer for that matter. As nice as the weather was, setting up the trot line or traps during the afternoon is sometimes out of the ordinary, as most serious crabbers practice getting out on the water as early in the morning as possible (while remaining legal that is). It involves taking the time the night before to look up the time of sunrise and planning their trip accordingly, aiming to set the gear at a half hour before sunrise. Making sure that as the sun is starting to make its presences the trot line is in the water and ready for the first run of the early morning! Getting started so early is sometimes attributed to fewer shadows that may scare some of the more cautious blue crabs to drop off the line early. Perhaps to some it’s so you’re not personally working the line or pulling traps in the middle of the hot summer sun. Or maybe for others it’s just practice that has been handed down generation to generation to try to predict the best conditions when the blue crabs will take the bait. In the end, perhaps it just boils down to superstition! Regardless of our personal thoughts of making sure to get on the water in the cool early morning, it’s hard to complain about a sunny day on the water.

We took our chances of some afternoon crabbing, because of how slack the early season was. At least if we found ourselves heading back to the docks with a less than excitable catch, at least we were able to enjoy the weather while being on the bay. We were set up a little after 2:00pm in 82°F water that ranged in depth from 8ft – 14ft. We found ourselves with a surprising first run on the trot line with 18 crabs total, 7 of which were nice keepers. The first pull of the traps provided some more excitement with 8 crabs total, 6 of which were keepers. The day continued with busy runs on the trot line, and a few crabs being added to the basket by pulling traps in between runs. At one point we decided to forgo pulling traps because of how busy the trot line was; only if they were all keepers we would have had two bushel before the end of the planned trip.

We found ourselves picking up gear after a few hours with ¾ bushel crabs to steam up and enjoy! It was the first decent catch of the summer, and it seemed as the crabbing would be pretty steady from that point on.

As this is being written several weeks post trip, there have been similar reports of pretty steady crabs when running trot lines, including plenty throw backs. Others have also reported that even though they are only catching a few this years, there are some “gator-buster” river crabs out there for sure; which is what we were experiencing during our trips out earlier in the season. It seems that the crabbing has picked up some and held steady, making for some enjoyable crabbing trips. Hopefully it will continue to be steady and pick up even more as we approach the early fall stretch of the crabbing season.

Whether is best practice or superstition, sometimes it doesn’t matter when it’s a sunny day out on that brackish water!