I’ve been an avid crabber now for over 70 years, getting my start as a four or five-year old chicken-necking with handlines for the tasty crustaceans in the salty backwaters of Ocean City, Md. Under the supervision of my parents and our paternal grandmother, my brother and I would team up to collect dozens of blue crabs in our trusty peach baskets after just a few hours on the docks. In what you might call “back-in-the-day,” there seemed to be no shortage of Maryland blue crabs.
Fast forward to today, July, 2, 2024, (which incidentally happens to be this columnist’s 75th birthday) and, at first glance, at least, there still seems to be no shortage of crabs here as evidenced by the abundance of Ocean City restaurants that constantly advertise “all you can eat” crab feasts. Truth be told, not all of those crabs come from Maryland. Many are imported from the Carolinas, Louisiana, Virginia, and elsewhere.
However, Maryland, which embraces the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, remains the state most celebrated for its ubiquitous blue crabs. In the intervening years my own crabbing strategies have evolved. While I’ll occasionally chicken-neck with handlines to entertain the grandkids, I’ve mostly graduated from handlining, now preferring to drop a pair of crab pots baited with bunker into our backyard canal.
In the course of a day or two, I can expect to haul in at least half a dozen blue claws of legal size. In Maryland’s coastal bays and tributaries where I do my cr.