Crabb'in on the inter-coastal

Paul and PJ introduced our family to a new past

time...well, I think it will become a new past-time! We were at the beach over the weekend with Paul's parents and we all loaded up in our cars and drove to a nearby park with a boat dock and pursued our adventure. A few weeks back Paul had taken the boys fishing with him at this dock and they met a family that was crabbing. The little boy, Robin, educated my boys (especially PJ) with the ins and outs of it all. So, when we went the other evening, PJ was full of information for me. I learned that the way to tell a male from a female Blue Crab was by looking at it's underside. If there is a rocket shape then it's a male, if there's a pumpkin shape then it's a female. Simple enough. Before going, Paul looked up any state regulations on crabbing and learned that if there are eggs in the female's sacks, then we had to let her go. The males are always fair game. So, we set out on our adventure. All you need to crab is some fishing line, some sinkers and some fish (we used mullet), a big net and a bucket to put the crabs in once caught.

Here you can see PJ dropping the line into the water. The fish is attached to the line. You wait a while and very slowly pull the line up...if there's a crab on the fish, you get your net ready and let him drop in it. You gotta be fast and you gotta be clever!

Can you see the blue crab?

Grampy, PJ and Calvin inspect to see if they got one.

A rare family photo in which everyone is looking at the camera! Isn't the inter-coastal beautiful?

We were hoping to boil the crabs and devour them but we waited too long and had to offer them up to the gulls. We haven't had much "luck" (for lack of a better term) in eating the crabs we find. Hopefully, third time's a charm!