We’re A Little Crabby

This week has been fun, learning about when and how to catch Snapper fish at the local fishing pier. We’ve been catching at least a few per day until today, when the super rough waters only came up with one. This one’s a decent size, about 10 inches from fish lips to fish tail.

I decided to try to sink a line hooked with a shiner (the bait) to the floor so that perhaps we may get flounder or fluke or a larger bluefish, but instead, I began pulling up crabs! I manage to get 4 lady crabs (my net is small and isn’t suitable for crabs and these guys are at least 5-6 inches across the carapace) although I managed to also snare a Jonah crab and a few blue crabs–but they escaped. Trust the day I don’t bring chicken for crabs to be abundant.

Lady crabs are edible, but a lot of people think that only the blue claws on LI are for eating, ignoring this particular treat. It’s meat is sweet and delicious, suitable definitely for steamed with a little old bay, or made into crab cakes, which is what I’ll be doing with them.

I hope next year we can start going fishing earlier in the year, as this week I have not bought meat at the market at all, subsisting on the abundant seafood the ocean is providing.