patapsco comm.

[redbeard]

crab repoprt: crabbed fri-9/4 and mon. 9/7 2400 ft chicken fri 8 bu-5 bu sooks -3 bu. males about 7-8 hrs mon 6 bu - 4bu sooks 2 bu males about the same amount of time. without the help from my son culling for me i would'ntbe able to keep up. sooks bringing 50.00 bu i hope they hang around awhile.

[john pearce]

I was out in the Patapsco on Saturday and saw a ton of females, if I could have kept them I easily could have had 2 bu. of females and at least 3 bu. of males if I had kept all the legals, I stuck with going for a bu. of big jimmies and got just that

[gwaud]

redbeard - check ur bm

[Riptide1947]

Just how many commercial licenses are working trotlines ? ?

[redbeard]

thats a hard question to ansewer, i think dnr said they offered to buy back 3,700 lcc com. lic. but i know guys who have other lic. types that are more designed to run pots but they trotline instead and yes it's legal. are you asking about the area i crab of in general?

[redbeard]

dale did you get the PM i sent you? somtimes i sscrew things up.

[Riptide1947]

I guess that I was just looking at some numbers, if you sold your catch, wholesale $50 for sooks, $100 - males, then on Friday your income was $550.00, and on Monday $400. total $900 for two days of work ( not bad ) . I know there are some expenses, but if you crabbed 6-days trotline, and averaged the same catch, your income would be $2700/ wk X's 4.3 = almost $12,000.00 per month, with almost a five month season $60,000.00 annual not too shabby ?
Now for the crabs caught 6-bu a day avg. = 36-bu a week X's 4.3 = 155 bushels with 80-crabs avg p/bu = 12,400 crabs per month or
62,000 crabs per season, now times the number of crabbers using trotlines. We know the potters are catching two to three times that many, cause we see them with their baskets stacked high when they're done dumping pot sor the day. Some have even reported catching 25-bushel in a day. I know that the regs changed some on the females last year, but I believe that this really needs to continue, if we really want to restore the crab populations to what they were in their prime. It's a proven fact that the more females that survive to lay the eggs, then the better the crab population is the next year.

I'm not bringing this up to start a rant against the comm crabber, just looking at some numbers, and considering the impact of keeping females / sooks

[redbeard]

ripetide i agree that the current limits on sooks should continue,but it effects others who are fulltime watermen far more than me. i thionk the current regs. are far more fair to all as opposed to the first year when they really hurt the lower bay watermen. the numbers your looking at are never that good but i'm sure you know that, almost no one gets 50 for sooks and there's only a short time that thier around the upper bay, some don't fool with them because you have to have a market for them. the males for 100 don't happen in the wholesale market either, only if you retail them your self which is not possible all the time. it's not all it'c cracked up tp be, but i'd rather be on the water than anywhere else.

[redbeard]

ripetide 1 more thing when you work the water be it for supplemnt or your sole income your at the mercy of mother nature and the resource it;s self. i did not crab for 4 weeks this past june into july because the crabs weren't there inthe area i crab.

[Stumpknocker]

It's also gotta suck knowing that your prices are determined by someone else. As fall approaches, the crabbin gets better, but the prices go down. In most businesses, you make the same rate year round.

[Riptide1947]

I wasn't complaining, just crunching some numbers, I guess the ones that really crush the crabs are the potters, not the trotliners ? ?
Crunching and analyzing numbers is what I do professionally, I love to crab more than anything, so does my family, just don't get out too much.

[Nummer1]

"It's a proven fact that the more females that survive to lay the eggs, then the better the crab population is the next year."
who proved what ?when? references please. Better in what way?

[Riptide1947]

Mother Nature............It's a fact proven many times over, that if you reduce or eliminate the egg bearers, then extinction of the species.

Common sense........The more females bearing / hatching eggs then the more numbers are added to the population.

[redbeard]

more females is no garentee of more crabs inthe bay although it would seem to be. alot of factors play in and evendnr said they don't know if the new regs. on females will work, they've never tried it so i guess we'll see by next spring or the one after. PS one train of thought is the bay may be at it's carrying capacity for crabs IN THE CONDITION IT'S IN.

[longtail]

I guess that I was just looking at some numbers, if you sold your catch, wholesale $50 for sooks, $100 - males, then on Friday your income was $550.00, and on Monday $400. total $900 for two days of work ( not bad ) . I know there are some expenses, but if you crabbed 6-days trotline, and averaged the same catch, your income would be $2700/ wk X's 4.3 = almost $12,000.00 per month, with almost a five month season $60,000.00 annual not too shabby ?
Now for the crabs caught 6-bu a day avg. = 36-bu a week X's 4.3 = 155 bushels with 80-crabs avg p/bu = 12,400 crabs per month or
62,000 crabs per season, now times the number of crabbers using trotlines. We know the potters are catching two to three times that many, cause we see them with their baskets stacked high when they're done dumping pot sor the day. Some have even reported catching 25-bushel in a day. I know that the regs changed some on the females last year, but I believe that this really needs to continue, if we really want to restore the crab populations to what they were in their prime. It's a proven fact that the more females that survive to lay the eggs, then the better the crab population is the next year.

I'm not bringing this up to start a rant against the comm crabber, just looking at some numbers, and considering the impact of keeping females / sooks


I believe, if this senario was even remotely possible to attain, there wouldnt be 6000 "latent" crab licenses the DNR wants to buy back.

[Nummer1]

Without being too harsh, there is a lot of groupthink on this female thing. Females dont have babies, they do not nuture or become mothers. They release an egg mass that is consumed as part of the food chain from that point on through development. Putting/keeping more egg bearers in the bay only increases that. So with more eggs wont there be more predators which consume the blue crab throughout development? mIcromanaging ecosystems can have unexpected results. In addition, the female has an advantage in nature that after her terminal molt she is less likely to be eaten by other crabs. we dont know dnr dont know. What were the results from the previous CRAB restoration project? Was it abandonded or frozen from lack of funding? did it help? N1

[redbeard]

#1, which crab restoration project are you refuring to?

[Nummer1]

redbeard, it was the Crab Restoration and the Bay (C.R.A.B.), a program where hatchery crabs were released. I know it lost Federal funding but wasn't sure what impact it may have had. Supposedly they had crabs growing to 5" in 6 months

[redbeard]

that study continues as far as i know with private funding. i think alot more funding, on a large scale would be needed to hatch enough crabs to make a differance,for now i'll count on mother nature and keep my fingers crossed.