Almost anyone who observes the Chesapeake Bay knows that it is in trouble and is not getting much better. It has been labeled a “National Treasure.” But if we truly think it is, then why haven’t we been able to accomplish much? Still, there are quite a few organizations that have been working to restore the Bay to something that some of us remember, and I have to think how bad would things be if these organizations hadn’t been doing all the things they do.
My first years were spent in Washington, DC, where it was mostly all concrete and asphalt. The area where I lived was made up of postage-stamp-size yards with grass.
My first trip to Southern Maryland opened a new world to me. I had never seen a crab, let alone eaten one. I caught fish during the day that were prepared for dinner that night. That was fresh fish. I was used to eating the frozen, one-pound blocks of either haddock or cod. No matter how many were there for dinner there was always enough because if there were five people there were five pieces of fish. If there were eight people there were eight pieces of fish. In Southern Maryland, I could eat as many fish as I could catch.
Some of my fondest memories are sitting around eating crabs with family and friends. Nobody was immune from getting messy. It seemed like all the little kids got the claws so they could beat them with the wooden mallet. If nobody was around and you had some crabs, you picked them out and made crab cakes or some other dish for later.
It brought a smile to my face to learn that the bottom of the female crab looked like the Capitol in DC and that the male looked like the Washington Monument. How very convenient. Back then we didn’t eat the females.
One day, I caught my very first sight of a crab scooting through the grass while peering down into the water. I was told to catch some and we would eat them.
There was an aluminum rowboat with one end of the rope tied to the bow and the other around my waist. I had a bushel basket sitting on the bow seat. I could catch crabs with a crab net and flip them into the basket. It took a while and a lot of misses before I got the hang of it.
The most significant thing that happened that day was not even recognized at the time. It was many years later that it occurred to me that I was crabbing in water that was almost up to my shoulders and I could see the bottom. I also remember how some old timers would tell me they could see 12 feet down.
Over the years, the water got cloudier and cloudier.
As I became more acquainted with the Potomac, I found I could walk the shallow edges with a bucket and a crab net and catch crabs. I would walk until I met someone coming the other way. We would check what each other had, then turn around and head back from where we came. Today when I walk the beach, I rarely see a crab. There are plenty of young boys today who will never experience the pleasure and excitement of catching crabs. If you tell me your crab stories from when you were young, I will tell you how old you are.
I remember when a neighbor moved in and asked, “Why do all the crabbers put all of their crab pots right here on this part of the river?” I told him that the number of crab pots that he saw on this one part of the river was the same number he would see for several miles up the river and all the way down to the mouth of the river (18 miles) and it was the same on the other side of the river, too.
It looks like the crab population is in trouble again. There were a lot of complaints this year that crabbers could not catch many crabs. The commercial crabbers say that the striped bass are eating the crabs. And to prove it, they open up the stomachs of the fish and count the crabs in their bellies. Continue Reading….
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