Crab Goodness

Yesterday marked the first time May and I went crabbing. Would we do it again? Definitely. One of the most leisurely "sports" in the world. It consists of throwing a crab trap ("pot") in the water, eating lunch and then checking your traps. That's about it. Best part about it was that it actually didn't require a boat.

We joined our friend's Scott & Corrin along with their family on a ferry ride from Edmunds (about 12 miles north of us) to Kingston (tip of the Olympic peninsula). We walked off the boat with a cooler for the crabs, traps and some ropes and walked about 200 feet to the fishing pier. The biggest mistake of the day was using frozen crab bait ("hockey pucks") and removing them from their protective plastic cover. We should have known better, but while we were at lunch they disintegrated pretty quickly. After about 2 hours we returned and found only 2 crabs in all 3 of the traps we were using and no bait left. Bummer. So we headed to the local store and picked up some near-expiring chicken thighs. They worked brilliantly! Within 2 hours (and a lot of crab pot micro-managing) we collected another 7 Red-rock crabs.

Things we learned:

• Check pots regularly, numerous times starfish entered the cage and enveloped the bait.
• Male crabs have a pointed abdomen, females are round.
• Use tongs to handle the little suckers, they move really fast and have mean pinchers.
• Everyone loves chicken, including crabs.