... Practice it enough, and it almost gets to be routine. But I like to think there's nothing routine about any boat ride.
It's usually afternoonish when I decide to take the boat ride a half-mile or so north through the channel, dodging the outcroppings and fighting the wind with my little electric motor, until at last I come to the area I've been crabbing. The water here's a good 5 or 6 feet deep, and the nearby seagrass beds and mangrove stand offer all the necessary amenities to support a decent population of Florida blue crabs. Maneuvering out here with the nearby shallows and obstacles is easiest if I pull the motor up out of the water (so it won't hit anything or get goo on it from the shallows), and sit on the bow seat and paddle the Porta-Bote like a kayak. Such a nice boat for the task. Did crabbing pick the Porta-Bote, or did the Porta-Bote pick crabbing? I suppose if I had a bigger boat, I'd be heading a little ways offshore for bigger game.
Today as I pulled the motor up and got in position to retrieve my traps, a mangrove snapper jumped out of the water and onto my boat, giving me a bit of a start. But I decided it totally had to be good luck. I paddled carefully around to retrieve the first trap. Grab the buoy rope, haul the trap up. Three large adults. Nice. Paddle to the other trap, grab the buoy rope, haul the trap up. Another two large adults. Oh yes, there's enough here for free crab cakes, which is always a good feeling.
Since I didn't set an anchor, the wind has blown me into the shallows in the few seconds it took to pull the traps up, which is another reason to paddle out: Here, you pretty much have to. But soon, the prop is back down and I'm heading home under power, 5 crabs and one mangrove snapper richer.
We threw the snapper back, although I was pondering snapper parmesan. Not today.
I grab the enormous pair of barbeque tongs that I usually use to handle these critters, and I wrestle them out of the traps and toss them into a bucket. Then, the bucket comes into the kitchen and sits next to the steamin' pot, which is on the stove. One by one, they go into the steamin' pot and get covered with Old Bay. About midway through the 15-20 minute steamin process, they look like this:
Eventually they get done steaming, and I help Grace pick them (but she does most of the work).
Sometimes, blue crab claws can have a lot of meat. Usually it's the jumbo lump and backfin areas that yield the most, though. We end up with a nice little pile of this:
It weighs out to a quarter-pound, or about $5 worth. I'm not quitting my day job. But a decent crab catch is a good excuse for me to drink a bottle (or two). The lump is made into crab cakes, which are fried and served on a warm hoagie roll to yield:
The blue crab cake sandwich, the end result of lowering traps into the water and waiting 20-24 hours.
I've crabbed a few other spots now, some have little shelter or primarily juvenile populations. Some just don't have very many crabs. This one is the nicest I've found so far, but I suspect there are nicer spots, and that the catch will increase soon as summer comes.
This is one of the greatest tricks we've learned since moving to the Keys. I repeat it as often as I possibly can. Now if only more mangrove snapper would jump onto my deck, we'd be all set. Until then, if life hands you an unlimited supply of blue crab, it can't hurt to eat a lot of tasty crab cakes.
-Chris