Crab season is under way

EASTON Crab season opened Sunday, with lower bushel limits for females but no closure in June for the first time in several years.
Instead of having the female harvest closed for two weeks, Department of Natural Resources officials lowered the bushel limits at the season's start."Those limits were recommended to us by the industry itself," said Lynn Fegley, deputy director of the DNR's Fishery Service. "The Blue Crab Advisory Committee wanted to be able to have that June closure opened."

Bushel limits are higher this year than last for June, July and August. The lower limits at the season's start coincide with lower prices for females because of the Virginia fishery. Those prices likely will increase this summer.

The bushel limit also likely will be slightly lower this fall, Fegley said.

"Basically, we adjusted everything so the protection levels will stay the same but there will be no closed days through Nov. 10," she said.

Steve Lay, a Cecil County waterman who is on the blue crab advisory committee, said that committee's primary job is to figure out seasons and bushel limits on females.

"In the past, there was a closure for two weeks in June and in September," said Lay, who also is treasurer of the Maryland Watermen's Association. "Last year we didn't have a closure in September, just in June. This coming season we won't have any closures for females."

Adding 20 days to the season meant lowered bushel limits, but the totals are still the same, Lay said.

Scott Todd, a crab potter and fifth-generation Dorchester County waterman who is president of the Dorchester County Seafood Harvester's Association, said those June closures hurt watermen.

"Those 14 days in June when we couldn't keep the females just wiped us out," he said.

Todd said he saw some trotliners and crab potters out Sunday, and plans to start himself next week.

Lay also saw people head out Sunday. Lower Bay watermen typically take Sundays off, while Upper Bay crabbers often crab that day. Lay, however, won't start crabbing until May.

"I would be going myself but I've been busy with the ghost pot program," he said. DNR's ghost pot retrieval program pays watermen to drag for abandoned pots. It starts in the lower Bay and moves north, with Lay working April 16.

Todd, however, isn't a fan of the program.

"We don't want welfare, we just want to work," he said. "Here are people who are self-sufficient, yet we're being paralyzed."

The crabbing business is becoming unbelievable hard, Lay said.

"It's just getting ridiculous," he said. "When all this is shut down and becomes totally private, I think a lot of people will be sorry we're gone. And all over nothing all over a dollar bill that probably won't even pan out in the long run."

One good thing for crabbers, though, is last year's mild winter, compared to the previous bitterly cold winter that killed off a third of the Bay's crabs.

"At least we didn't have a 30 percent die off," said Lay, who predicts an average year for crab harvest.

Fegley said the warm winter meant record-breaking water temperatures in the Bay, all the way down into Virginia.

"Everything is happening early," she said. "It sounds like we'll have a really early peeler run. How is this unusual weather going to impact crabbers, how is the market going to adjust, where are the crabs going to be when ... it will be interesting to see how it all plays out."