![]() McClair and John Murphy, Morris’s crewman, flip the net to empty it onto a wide wooden platform and begin sorting on their hands and knees through an array of shells, searching for blue crabs. Morris eased the throttle forward and dragged the dredge through the mud for one minute at three knots, then hauled it back up, pausing to rinse the mud out before bringing it on board. Order these Maryland style crabs from Chesapeake Bay today at Camerons Seafood. A Virginia dredge refers to an eight foot wide piece of equipment with an attached net that gets dropped into the water to dredge for crabs. Welcome to Blue Crab Bay Co., Purveyor of Classic Coastal Cuisine Since 1985 Add our Blue Crab Oyster Plate to your collection Pamela Barefoot, founder and longtime president of Blue Crab Bay Co., sold the company to Eastern Shore of Maryland native Elizabeth Lankford in December 2016. Our Colossal Blue Crabs are 6-1/4'+ from tip to tip with sweet, buttery flavor. In Maryland, the pride and joy of the Chesapeake Bay coastline is the prized blue crab. Adult blue catfish have few natural predators in the Chesapeake Bay. Roger Morris, a Dorchester County waterman who works under contract with the state’s department of natural resources, dropped a Virginia dredge off the stern of Mydra Ann, his 45-foot Bay workboat, and let the attached chain pay out until the dredge hit bottom 20-some feet below, jolting the boat. Blue catfish are apex predators of Chesapeake tributaries they are opportunistic and generalist predators, feeding on important native fish such as menhaden, shad, river herring, as well as blue crabs, plants, and insects. On a recent gray January morning, they were working a section of the upper Chesapeake Bay off Rock Hall on the Eastern Shore.Ĭapt. “And that’s really just us partnering with academic institutions or other scientists in the region to identify knowledge gaps when it comes to blue crabs and help to fill those knowledge gaps,” McClair said. They use the results to develop a management program and then they do research. This year, customers will be shelling out more to get. The latest restrictions may mean another disappointing year for watermen.Genine McClair, who runs the Maryland Department of Natural Resource’s blue crab program, says the survey is the first of three steps. Chesapeake Bay hardshell crabs are a hot seller at Grappling Crab Shack in Lower Allen Township, especially over the summer months. When a blue crab is feasting on your offering, the line will begin to tighten and move this is when you slowly and gingerly bring the line in hand over hand. Earlier this year Virginia established new daily bushel limits. Hans, here it is - the definitive guide on how to eat a steamed Chesapeake Bay Blue Crab.I left out the first instruction, which is come back to Maryland so. With the steep decline in population, Virginia, Maryland and the Potomac River Fisheries Commission will restrict harvests by 10 percent this year. The number of mature females last year was down significantly," said Lipcius.ĭata from the survey is used to set harvest limits. It supports a large commercial fishery in the United States with approximately one third of the landings taken from Chesapeake Bay. "It is on the low end but not unexpected. He says the 81% drop in babies this year came as no surprise. Use them in commercial designs under lifetime, perpetual & worldwide. This represents a 10 percent drop from the 2016 crabbing season. Professor Rom Lipcius of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science is a principle investigator for the survey. Download Chesapeake Blue Crab stock photos. An estimated 58 million pounds of blue crabs were harvested from the Chesapeake Bay last year, according to the Chesapeake Bay Stock Assessment Committee (CBSAC). Our crab meat is shipped fresh April December. Caught and picked today, on your table tomorrow. Last year a baby crab boom led to the highest count in 20 years. Chesapeake Bay Blue Crabs Fresh Lump Crab Meat Price starting at: 54.99 Quantity 1 Pound 5 Pounds 10 Pounds Unlike any of our competition, our white lump crab meat is processed on site daily using only fresh Chesapeake Bay blue crabs. Scientists from Virginia and Maryland conduct the so-called "winter dredge survey" while crabs are burrowed in the mud. Each year the overwintering mortality, those crabs that die in the winter, is estimated and abundance is adjusted for that loss. Just prior to the final molt, an immature female crab, known as. Five years after the Chesapeake Bay blue crab fishery was declared a federal disaster an annual scientific survey shows the population is far below the previous year, but scientists are not too worried. Managers estimate abundance, the number of crabs estimated to be living in the Chesapeake Bay, by multiplying the density of all crabs by the area of the bay. Blue crabs mate from May to October in the brackish or slightly salty waters of Chesapeake Bay.
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