CHESAPEAKE CRABFEAST: CHESAPEAKE BAY WATERMEN

COMMERCIAL CRABBERS & HAND LINERS

A commercial crab potter is allowed to fish three hundred pots per person and up to nine hundred per boat. Crab Potting is hard work, not only in the bay but also on the shore. Crab Pots have to be cleaned constantly and a crabber spends as much time cleaning and repairing pots as he does fishing them.A Crab Pot is two foot square made out of hex (chicken wire) or square wire and has funnels that allow the crabs to enter the pot for the bait. The Crab Pot has upper and lower chambers with a petition (forbay) separating the lower and upper chambers, so the crabs cannot easily get out after they enter the pot for the bait. The pots are baited with menhaden or other bait fish and/or razor clams.The season is from the first of April to the last of Nov. The size limit on crabs is five inches, anything under that has to be returned to the bay.

CHESAPEAKE BAY

Chesapeake Bay – Approximately 800 miles north of the Florida coast and an equal distance south of Casco Bay, Maine, lays one of the largest watershed basins in the United States: the Chesapeake Bay, child of the “mother of waters”. The bay is 200 miles long and its watershed includes six states. With over 5,600 miles of shoreline, 46 principle rivers, and countless creeks, the Chesapeake Bay is the largest inland body of water on the East Coast. Snug harbors and cozy coves provide vast opportunities for exploration and adventure. For the mariner searching for a boater’s paradise, where the seasons are long and the weather mild, the Chesapeake Bay should be at the top of the list. The water provides a center for travel, commerce and leisure, home too many species of wildlife, and a great natural resource. Captain John Smith described the Chesapeake Bay - “a faire bay…heaven and earth never agreed better to frame a place for man’s habitation”.