Crab season is officially under way, but it could be a few weeks until the real action starts.
“We don?t really start catching until the middle of April or later,” said Larry Simns, president of the Maryland Watermen?s Association.
Maryland?s nine-month crab season started April 1, but colder weather and a shot of winter-like chill this weekend could mean a slow start, said Lynn Fegley, a fisheries biologist with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, adding that water temperatures need to be close to 50 degrees for ideal crab catching.
For the next few weeks, crabbers will be getting their gear together and ramping up for the season, she said.
In the spring, crabs wake up after a torpid winter and experience a growth spurt, Fegley said. They start shedding their shells, resulting in the coveted soft-shell crab. “For them to start doing that, we need a good stretch of nice, warm weather,” she said.
Watermen also seek peelers ? crabs on the cusp of shedding, which they keep in tanks until they shed and are ripe for sale.
Each winter, the DNR teams with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science to survey the number of crabs to see what the harvest might look like. The groups sampled 1,500 sites around the Chesapeake Bay, and results are expected in about a week, Fegley said.
In 1990, there were an estimated 800 million crabs in the Bay, according to the DNR. But that number dipped dramatically to 261 million in 2001. In 2006, there were an estimated 345 million crabs.
Although it?s hard to predict the harvest, Simns said he expects about the same as last year. “I think it?s going to be a usual season,” he said.
