Crabbing and Fishing

A beautiful and peaceful day

After dropping Yi-Ann & Rose off at the Dullus Airport, I went straight to meet Rob at the Park & Ride off I-424 Davidsonville Rd around 7:30am.

Rob's beautiful boat!

The goal was to go crabbing today. There was weather advisory for severely hot weather, but we were really lucky to not have that until around 1 pm. Since this is my first time crabbing, I had been anticipating with excitement for a few days already. The whole experience was great. The amount of work one needs to put into it was huge. However, it had a calming effect on me. Once you started the whole process, all you can think about was to get to the next trap, and to check whether there was any unfortunate crab trapped in it. Rob was doing most of the physical work though ... Putting out the traps (with chickens in them), checking the traps, while I was navigating the boat. Now, navigating the boat is no easy task for me. Since there are factors like the wind, the water current, the motor of the boat, etc, I find it really hard to keep the boat in straight line, let along controlling where exactly it needed to be for us to check the traps. There was this funny crab which after we released it, kept coming back to the same trap. I thought it was a extremely stupid crab, however Rob thought otherwise. He thought the crab is actually smart. It knew that it is undersized, and we would not take it home, so, why not keep coming back to finish the chicken meal we prepared for it?! After the first session of crabbing, Rob decided to take me fishing. This was a first for me also. It is not easy to do what one needs to do with relaxed hands while fishing. It took me several tries to get the movement right. I did have beginner's luck though. I caught a beautiful Rockfish. Of course I thought that was the most beautiful one ever existed. ^_^ I was happy to let it go back to where it came from though. After our fishing break, we went back to finish our job. The result was not bad at all. We probably let go of about 25 to 30 undersize crabs, and kept about 40. Of course, all 40 of them turn into our dinner tonight. Peter and Fiona were both impressed with the work we did.

Result of the day of crabbing - Maryland Blue Crabs - about 40 of them in total

The Crab Feast was held at Rob & Fiona's place. We also got corn, potato, beer, & champagne to accompanying our crabs. The crabs were steamed with traditional Maryland Crab recipe (with beer, vinegar, water & old bay seasoning). It was the best crab dinner I ever had. They were fat and juicy, the meat was sweet. It was excellent!