Night Visitors

End of August and all of September usually mean the height of crabbing season. Some folks find the whole crustacean body thing offputting. Some folks like crab but prefer it picked by someone else and put into a nice patty with no filler and good seasonings. At our house, we wade in full steam and dump the steamed crabs in a bowl where we can pick them with crab picking tools and get our hands all greasy and out chins covered in Old Bay seasoning. No, I do not have a photo of that disgusting practice. But we are catching crabs and freezing a few while cooking and eating most of the others this month.

The photo above is a bit blurry, but this is what they do, holding claws before we dump them in the steamer pot.

We catch our crabs off our dock by baiting large chicken wire baskets with fish heads or chicken necks and leaving the traps in the water overnight. We now have new neighbors and while heading out the other day for a boating trip I caught this photo of them enjoying their new house on the water. They do not have a boat, but are trying to line-bait their crabs! They brought down family and friends for this new family tradition.  We have also crabbed this way.

Some of our neighbors take out a small skiff and drop floating baited crab traps marked by buoys in the early morning and then go out and check them at dusk.

There is one caveat when eating crabs.  We usually dump the remaining shell and parts back into the river rather than our compost pile.  Sometimes we get lazy.  

One recent night I heard rumbling and thudding and at first wondered if someone was trying to break into the garage.  Then my deductions got honed as I headed toward the back deck and turned on the deck light.

He was wading in full throttle and covered in crab juices.  Turning on the light was a very mild distraction.

Lesson learned.  Get those crab remains out to the river right after dinner!