Crabs for dinner

The kids and I set out yesterday to hunt some crabs and what a blast we had. Sylviane helped us get a picnic lunch together and put sunscreen on the kids. I grabbed some squid from the freezer and got our gear ready. We have these new crab snares that we wanted to try out. They have small cages made of wire mesh that form a cube of about three inches. It has a hinged door to open and insert the bait and some heavy fishing line rigged into loops that will snare the crabs. Ben, Eva and I each had a snare and we walked out to the rock coast and set them out. Eva caught the first two crabs and oh what excitement. Ben was so cool saying "wow Eva you are good luck for crabbin". Her smile was priceless.

We spent the whole afternoon out on the rock just pulling up the snares and yelling "a crab, a crab, I got another crab, get the net dad!". It was the best day I ever had getting crab. Ben caught several crabs at one point and Eva hadn’t got any in awhile. Ben said "hey, Eva come try my 'good luck' spot and after you get two we can switch again”. It was a fine plan because sure enough Eva got crabs in a short while. It never stopped being exciting every time we pulled up the snares and saw a crab. Each of us used the measuring tool on the crabs we pulled in to see if they were legal size. Ben really liked to pick up and handle them and I kept worrying that he was going to get pinched. Pretty soon Eva was getting into grabbing these snapping critters and loading her own into the bucket.

Eva did so well that soon she had gotten more than either of us boys. Ben decided Eva was good at deciding when to pull up the snares because she was a natural to know just the right time, so he asked her to decide when to check. She liked that responsibility. The kids wanted to stay and keep on crabbing, it was such a fun after noon, but it was after 5:00 and time to go cook dinner.

What a meal! We ended up getting 3 dungeness crabs and 11 rock crabs. I put two of the biggest in the freezer for another day and cooked up the rest of them up. Eating crab is a messy business but it’s just as tasty as it is messy. We decided next time we will eat them outside.

Bill