Catching Crab: Easy Guide to Filling Your Pot

If you want to eat fresh, delicious crab you have two options: buy crab from someone who caught it or catch it yourself. Being the intrepid sorts of people, we opted for the later option. It probably helped that our current host had equipment for us to borrow.

See also: Jan’s recipe for Easy Boiled Crab.

Prep Your Pot

Crabbing is super easy. After you’ve acquired your crab license, all you need is a crab pot, bait, and a lawn chair. Our host provided all three, including turkey legs & razor clams to entice crabs into our trap. We waited for the tide to come in, drove to the dock at Tokeland, baited the traps and dunked the pots into the water.

Thoughts on bait: the crabs really seemed to go for razor clams. You can use a whole range of things including turkey legs, salmon guts, and even hamburger. But clams? Those seem to be a fav.

Thoughts on when to go: we generally went just before or after high tide. However, you can technically go any time of day.

Most of crabbing at that point is watching the clock and reading a good book. Oh, and staying warm. Dress in layers, including a waterproof topper. It gets wet on the docks.

Pull’em Up

After about 10-15 minutes, you haul the pots up quickly. The pressure from the water keeps the crabs in the pot. You then sift the females from the males, and the little crabs from the keepers (6.25″ across the carapace.)

Re-bait and re-soak as needed. If you’re lucky to get an abundance of crab, you can only keep five a day. It took us a while to catch enough to make a meal, but it was worth it.

Be Neighborly

Heeding social obligations are important in shared spaces, including public docks. If someone is out on the docks sipping coffee, you nod and ask if they’ve caught anything. And vice versa. If someone walks past you on the dock, you nod and say good morning/evening. It doesn’t matter if you’re feeling it or not, you’d best be nice because nobody likes a crabby crabber.

Also, if someone hauls up a keeper, you comment on it using the same worn crab jokes that have been uttered among generations of crab fishers. If you keep hauling up little guys, you use the same worn crab grumbles. Nobody wants original material here, none of that “I pinch” stuff. Stick to the established crabbing ethos.

However, you’re under no obligation to feed the dock birds. If you’re done with your bait, throw it into the ocean for the crabs because the birds don’t need any encouragement. The crab, on the other hand, might get a little bigger.