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December 07, 2004Beach Bums What's better than having a beach to yourself on an 80 degree day in November? Having an SSG's best friend to walk with you of course! This was from the "Decompression Tour 2004" at Edisto Beach, South Carolina, about a week after the election. As most of you know, I have shifted to the Democrat side as a blue dog/Southern/conservative subset. I know, I know, you don't meet many of those folks around. Well, there's about four of us left and two of us have been posting here at the SSG spot the past few days. Of course, that doesn't bother me too much. I was the one who recognized Zell Miller as my kind of politician back in 1998 when everyone else thought he was just some Democrat in Georgia. Ole Zell may have given up on his party, but some of us are ready to fight for its soul and not cede another inch to the Deaniac wing. Oh, wait, I've already decompressed. Time to change subjects...  This is Hemi and I fishing for some crabs off a dock in the deep water river in the marsh on the west side of Edisto Island. Hemi was spotting for another area and I was pulling it up. Unfortunately, my haste in pulling it up resulted in no crab for me. Any of you gentlereaders that have experience in crabbing, please leave a comment or send an email on the best ways to go crabbing with the crabbing hook. I still don't know when the best time of day is to go crabbing. The best advice I have had so far is from a local outfitter: "Throw a chicken neck on the hook, throw the hook into the creek, kick back and drink a beer. Give the string a gentle tug and if you feel some gentle tugs back, you've got a crab. Pull 'er up all slow like and just before it gets out of the water, scoop 'er up with a net." Posted by Adam H at December 7, 2004 09:23 PM ~ Link Cosmos | Trackbacks (0)Comments
Growing up we would go crabbing down at the bay in Mobile. We mostly went during the late evening right before dark..tied our chicken parts to the center of our crab basket..lowered it in, waited, then pulled up the crabs. Have to be quick or they would climb out! I'm not sure of a correct time to go..we just went once the heat was not so bad. Have fun! Good to see you back online! Posted by: Pam at December 8, 2004 10:19 AMYep. Throw a chicken leg in and pull 'er up slow and steady. I've caught many a crab in the Bayou behind my Mom's house that way! The sitting back and drinking part only makes it better! ;-) Posted by: mandy at December 8, 2004 06:58 PM
The Chicken on a hook, or tied to a string method works but takes practice and skill. Crabs may be dumb but when the meal they're eating starts puling them right out of the water it doesn't take much of a brain to know somethings up. I tried this method once, and although I didn't catch any crabs, I got some advice: First is to try to keep your line as vertical as possible, so when you start to pull, the bait goes up through the water rather than drag along the bottom. Second, put your net in the water when you drop your bait. When they say sit back and drink a beer they mean put down the line holding the bait to drink with and keep your net submerged. If you have your net sitting on the dock and you start pulling a crab, it's going to bolt as soon as you put that net in the water because of the disturbance. Traps are good but not always. The way they work (for folks new to crabbing) is that you drop this contraption that is essentially a cage with bait (chicken) in the center. When it reaches the floor it unfolds flat, and you just wait awhile and when you want to check the trap you pull it out of the water. When you pull it the sides fold up and trap the crab in the cage, but you have to be fast. Most of the time you can't see the trap at the bottom so your tactic is to leave it there for about the length of time it takes to drink a beer and yank it up. If you can see the bottom than a mistake most people make is to watch the crab climb into the trap and try to pull it up right then. That's not a good idea since the crab is still cautious and ready to take off at the slightest warning. Let it get comfortable and start munching on the bait before pulling it up. You have plenty of time and the only thing that might happen in the meantime is wither more crabs will join him or a bigger crab will come along and chase the other off. These methods are fine when you're by yourself, but when you're sharing a dock with a bunch of people the commotion of all those traps and nets tend to chase the crabs, and everything else, off. So try to find a secluded spot. Also, ask the locals if the crabbing is good. They tend to come in "Runs". Usually the best time to catch crabs is just around high tide, they come in from th ocean and start looking for stuff to eat. When the tide starts going back out they'll congregate closer to shore (like under docks) to try to stay out of the current. That's the best time to catch them before they get pulled back out to sea. Once in Ocean City, Md. a bunch of us went to various boat docks using string with bait, traps, without much luck. Crowded and frustrating. We found ourselves at the Western bulkhead just inside the inlet to Chesapeake Bay. The tide was high, and as some of us theorized, all the powerboats and yachts going through the channel were pushing the crabs against the bulkhead (some folks who were at the sandbar directly accross from us said the place was crawling with them also. We tried the previous methods without much luck at all. After about an hour we noticed that about 20 feet away a twelve-year old girl and her Dad had a five gallon bucket 3/4 full of crabs. IT turns out the girl noticed some clinging to the bulkhead and just started scraping them off with the net. We started reaching down with our nets as far as we can, then come up quick against the bulkhead and snag up to four crabs at a time. We wound up with eight bushels of crabs that day, and three years later I tried the same thing and it was totally dry.
HOW CUTE! Posted by: Melissa at December 9, 2004 03:21 PMPost a comment
 
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