Crabbing at Birch Bay

Two weeks ago we were staying in our WorldMark condo in Birch Bay for a week looking for some relaxation and some crabs. WorldMark is a points based condo system so we can stay at any of over one hundred resorts, depending on availability. In the case of this stay at Birch Bay availability was non-existent but my sister, Sue, made some reservations several months ago when there was availability so we are staying in one of those condos. Payback will come later.

It's amazing how the weather has changed since we were there. That week was warm, or even hot, with mild breezes. Now we have cool September weather after the stormy week that took out power to many people and brought rain and wind to our area. But it was was worth the trouble for the relief it brought the firefighters in our parched state.

 The crab season opened in Birch Bay (area 7) for the first time the week before we got there so this was the second week in this area. No matter the area, pots can be put in Thursday at sunrise and must be taken out Monday before sunset of any week the season is open.

Here comes our little boat put-putting in from the crabbing grounds which are about halfway between this beach and the point in the background. Even though it is a good distance from the shore the water is only about thirty feet deep. I didn't count but there were probably well over one hundred buoys marking pots in this area

In years past we have had no problem catching our limit but this year it was a little more difficult. There were fewer really big crab and lots of females and under sized males. Below is how the pot looks when we bring it into the boat. In this case there were two keepers with the rest undersized or females.

Here's a nice one. More than seven inches across the back. Lots of good meat here.

I noticed that there were very few soft shell crab this year. It is legal to keep only those crab "in hard shell condition" as the book says. Anyway it doesn't make sense to keep those with soft shells since there isn't much meat as the crab steals material from its own body to build the new shell for protection from predators. Once that new shell is built the crab can rebuild its body inside the protection of the new shell.

Here's our cooking kettle. We use sea water for cooking and protect our propane burner from the wind with a baffle made from old fluorescent light fixture reflectors.

We like to take off the back and shake out the guts of the crab before cooking since it comes out cleaner and it doesn't take up as much room in the cooking kettle.

Now comes the time consuming task of cleaning the meat out of the shells. After we clean the crab we pack it in vacuum bags and freeze it for all kinds of goodies during the coming year until next crab season.