How to Catch Crabs - Part 3

Mound Island – June 2, 2007 – the first crabs are trapped! We finally are in crab country. Our haul is 2 crabs both male and both just over legal size. We’re on a roll, and I’m happily planning a variety of crab menus from simple steamed crabs and butter to crab quiche and chowder. Oh, the delights I have planned! Will our refrigerator and freezer hold it all?






Upper crab is a Dungeness. Lower crab is a Rock Crab. I was not too pleased with the Rock Crab because when dumped in the orange bucket he proceeded to attack the Dungeness and pinch off one of its legs. They’re both in the same stew together. There’s no reason to get aggressive about it.

I eagerly await the next morning and the next haul. Three large female Dungeness. You are not allowed to keep females. Back in the water they go because of their sex. Now, you’re probably wondering how does one tell male from female crabs. You turn a crab over to examine its belly. The male’s abdomen is shaped roughly like a lighthouse. The female’s, in contrast, is wide and broad. (Another one of Mother Nature’s absurdities). I watch a crab boat come in and haul a few traps. I’m dismayed to see their traps seemingly heaping with crabs, but then I notice that most of them are being thrown back in the water due to undersize or sex. I feel better.

Next morning, only 1 undersized crab. I don’t care if it’s male or female because size is also a determining factor in keeping a catch.

June 6 finds us in a delightful anchorage called Green Island Cove. We drop our trap in a promising looking place. I’ve sweetened up the bait trap with squid and salmon skin. That ought to bring the crabs running. Instead, to my shock, dismay and revulsion, we bring up a monster from the deep. It’s a creature neither of us can identify. It looks like a cross between a starfish and an octopus. It’s got more arms than either of us can count. There’s one undersized crab in the trap with him, and the poor thing looks about ready to die of fright. This creature probably eats crab for breakfast and burps out the shells. We (notice the “we”) gingerly disentangle it from the webbing, drop him back in and hope never to see another one except in a picture book of odd creatures of the deep.


The next haul is an even larger one of those things. This one has itself clued to and wrapped around the bait trap. We now figure that, if one of these things gets anywhere near the trap, any crab in its right mind is going to head in the opposite direction. I can’t believe my luck. How do you discourage these things and bring on the crabs? Bill says that the next one we catch we’re going to cut off one of its legs and stick it in the bait trap. He remembers vaguely some one talking about these creatures and saying that, since they don’t eat their own kind, they will avoid a trap with one of their buddy’s body parts in it. I can’t believe anything this ugly would be so particular, but I do know for sure that the “we” that cuts off one of its legs is not going to be “me”!

In between all this unsuccessful crabbing, I continue with fishing. Bill finally takes pity on my efforts or else he just can’t stand watching what is going on in the name of fishing. He picks up my “103 Fishing Secrets” and quickly realizes that the reason I can’t make sense out of it is that it assumes the reader is already a fisherperson, which, as we all now know, I am not. He tells me that my knots aren’t right, and, when I lose a lure at the first tug, he tells me that he knew my knot wasn’t right. I tell him that, if he knew my knot wasn’t right, why didn’t he fix it? He says because he wanted to teach me a lesson. Realizing that wasn’t the correct thing to say at that moment, he sits down and rerigs the whole contraption for me using the right knots according to Bill Grun.

At a rainy day lunch stop in Sullivan Bay, we talk to a great fisher person. Bill buys me several different types of lures and something that looks like part of a baby’s crib mobile that can be made out of a coat hanger the fisher person tells us, but Bill figures that for $4.00 he’d rather buy it than make it. It’s supposed to be used to go “jigging” for Halibut. Sounds like we’re off to some country barn dance or something!

So, we continue to crab and fish, unsuccessfully, but hopefully. At least now, we are in it together – for better or worse, for richer or poorer, etc., etc.!