Byg Family: Adventures in Crabbing

So, as part of our Washington vacation, a few of us got to go crabbing. Apparently Mike and his siblings did this with their Grandpa when they were younger.
I had never been, so I wanted to go. I was sad Deryn and Jansyn didn't want to go, however, there was limited seating on the boat, so maybe it was just as well (although I would have let them go in my place if they had shown any interest).

So, here is how it begins:

First we board the boat and head out into the bay. Our tour guide Brian, explained that it was the end of the crabbing season and all the commercial companies had pretty much cleaned out the bay. He said that you won't get much at the end of the season unless you know where to go ... luckily, he does this regularly and knew where to go. Andrew and Justin are in this picture.

When we get to the right place, we toss a trap/cage overboard. Below is a picture of what the traps look like. In the center is a small square cage filled with chicken and salmon which will attract the crabs, the sides of the cage remain open until you pull the trap in, so it is important to pull fast! Sometimes the crabs were stuck to the bottom of the cage.

In all, we put out four cages, we tossed one overboard, drove a little further, tossed the second one, etc.... after the fourth one is in the water, we circle back to the first one to see what we have. If we had something, we would empty the cage and put it back in the same spot. If there was nothing, we would try another location. We kept going until we had enough crab to feed 18 of us!

At our first stop, Brian opened the compartment where the crab we were keeping would be stored and filled it with the water from the bay.

Below, Jenny is holding the hook we pull the cage back in with. (We had a very lively conversation about who the "hooker" was going to be) In reality we took turns, and most people tried it. The boat driver (that would be me) would pull up alongside the buoys marking where the cage was. It was my job to get as close as possible without running over the rope or the buoys - I think my years of being mail carrier and pulling up close to mail boxes came in very handy!
As soon as we were alongside the cage, I would kill the engine and make a hard left swinging the end of the boat around so the person with the hook could hook the buoys and pull the cage in!
(James, Jenny, and Stephanie are in this picture. )

This is what the cage would look like when we pulled it in... sometimes there was hardly anything, other times it was pretty full.

To keep the crab, the crab must meet two requirements. First, it must be male, and second it has to be a certain size, here is Brian measuring the crabs to see if we can keep them.

The triangle section just below the two hind legs indicates gender... I have already forgotten if it is the male or female on which this section is wider.

Also notice, you hold the crab by it's two back legs. If you do this, it cannot pinch you. Also good to know, in the event you squeeze too hard and the leg comes off... it will grow another one just like a lizard will grow a new tail.

I don't love this picture of me, but I am hold a crab, so I must keep the picture as evidence I was there!

A view of the boat compartment that held the crab we were keeping.

We had a lot of fun on the boat, we had the kids doing the crab chant, which we made up, which closely resembled the chicken dance.
We had the men competing for scores on a scale from 1 - 10 according to how well they tossed the cage or the buoys overboard. We convinced them they should add jazz hands and hip movement after releasing the cage or the buoys... it was pretty entertaining as they competed for scores and I believe there was some good video taken. Eventually I was roped into tossing the buoys and adding some dance moves at the end... I did not realize Justin was recording the event.... That will probably show up at some in-opportune time!

Once we got back, it was time to clean and prepare the crab for cooking. Brian, says most people just cook the crabs whole, but he disagrees with that and thinks you are likely to get sick if you cook the crab with it's bowels etc... he says just cook the part you plan to eat. He also thinks it is nicer since you are not putting a live crab into boiling water.

So, step one is to select a victim from the crab pile.....

At first we stuck with the theory that the men are the hunters and this was their job! Here are Andrew, Tyler, and James learning how to clean crab....

And here are Justin and Mike....

These expressions accurately resemble what everyone else thought as we watched....

Pretty soon I decided to join in - I figured I may as well have the whole experience. Who knows when I'll get to do it again. So, here is what you do:

After selecting a crab, you bring it over to the post, hold the legs down with one hand, grab the edge of the shell / head, and rip it off. This kills the crab, and pulls out it's brain, although they were pretty close to dead by this point anyway.

Then it looks like this. Next you remove the lungs, which you can see on the sides and the jaw bone I think... then you flip it over and remove the male anatomy.

Once that is complete, you break it in half, bring it over to the bucket, and give the two halves a hard shake to fling the rest of the guts into the bucket.