Interesting Article...

[PHIRSCH]

Another perspective on Crab population...

Watermen say crab levels aren't as low as portrayed | delmarvanow.com | The Daily Times

[SevernaParkFishhawk]

From the article itself, "At the dock on Friday, Landon received $22 per bushel for male, or jimmy, crabs, $20 per bushel for mature females, or sooks, and $15 for "busted sooks," or those carrying fertilized eggs. Here's your problem, it doesn't take a genius to figure it out BUSTED SOOKS $15 dollars a bushel. They shouldn't be harvesting them at all, not to mention they get little or no money for the females, so who is getting rich here. Your mortgaging the future for what a $15 dollars a bushel. I feel nothing for the commercial crabber, they are killing their lifestyle and ruining it for EVERYONE else.

[Scott McGuire]

I'm pretty sick of the "If you ask a waterman, he'll tell you what's really going on. Those scientists that sit at a desk all day don't know what they're talking about."

Meanwhile most of the picking houses have gone out of business...

[flattyfrank]

double post

[flattyfrank]

I'm pretty sick of the "If you ask a waterman, he'll tell you what's really going on. Those scientists that sit at a desk all day don't know what they're talking about."

Meanwhile most of the picking houses have gone out of business...

Get out and go crabbing. Observe it for yourself. don't just take the word of one side or the other. go observe your bait being demolished by the little ones, then come back and tell us what you saw. In actuality, this year it appears that the scientists really don't know what they are talking about. Alot of crabs in the bay.

[QUOTE=Crow Bait;1142769]I'm pretty sick of the "If you ask a waterman,

I'm pretty sick of this tired cca anti-commercial mantra. All you guys want to do is put the watermen out of business so you can have all the crabs and fish for yourself

[SevernaParkFishhawk]

When I was much younger may father took the time to take us fishing and crabbing every Friday following work and we caught enough crabs and fish for the entire family (hand-lining never the less), plus we had some crabs left over to pick and make crab cakes for the winter months. I might add were a family of six. Today I can not do that with my children. Two things are occurring that prevent me from doing the same with my children; poor water quality and to add insult to injury overfishing the resource or it not being managed right. Outlawed should be dredging of the crabs in winter months (Virginia), the keeping of buster sooks, and mechanical equipment to catch them. Nobody wants to put the waterman out of business, but one must realize that, if you cannot survive at what you are doing find a new line off work. We non-waterman have to do that EVERYDAY. I hate my job but it pays well. Also I don't like the fact that I have to pay up to $75 dollars a dozen to get decent crabs and then have to make something else because I cannot afford enough for everyone, so that is another reason the resource has so much pressure on it. It's cheaper to catch them ourselves.

[Scott McGuire]

Flatty,

I do crab. But I realize that my single observation every week or so, cannot be compared to the 1500 samples taken by the winter dredge survey...along with the catch records of thousands of commercial crabbers, or the fishery independent data collected to help make decisions. Anecdotes cannot be compared to science.

Finally, I have not been anti waterman in this thread... I've been honest. I don't despise watermen, I know more than a few, consider them my friends. Watermen are good people who are caught in the middle of a bad situation.

My problem is that Crabbers who clamber for media attention fail to take responsibility for fixing the problem. Instead - they want to "prove" that the government doesn't know what it's doing. Meanwhile - the state has made some good decisions based on data.

If you want to crab in the future I reccomend you become part of the solution instead of just throwing stones.

[Cabyn Fever]

The last line of the story takes care of showing this guys intellect and credibility....

"A small crab is going to breed a small crab," he said. "That's my thinking."

That's like saying a 90 pound woman is going to have a smaller baby than a 150 pond woman.

Chuck

[Scott McGuire]

I recommend checking out a 2003 issue of the MD Seagrant's Chesapeake Quarterly. Most of the magazine is dedicated to understanding the divide between watermen and scientists.

I think Page 11 is quite revealing.

The link prompts you to download the PDF fromt he MD seagrant website.

ftp://ftp.mdsg.umd.edu/Public/MDSG/CQ/CQ02_3.PDF

[PHIRSCH]

It strikes me how people react...this is why I don't post much anymore...

I know Eddie and give him a break, he is entitled to his opinion, he is working within the law and he is simply trying to provide for his family. I hope he catches 100 baskets of Busted Sooks a day, he earned it and it's within the regs.

However, I am just like anyone else who wants our kids and grand kids to enjoy what we have now and what we enjoyed in the past. We all know the Bay's decline is because of multiple reasons. Let's see what the population levels are after about 3 or 4 years after these recent reg changes.

I'm tired of the Rec vs. Comm. and the Md. vs. Va. BS.

It is what it is...

Hope your catch'm up!

Pat