It’s been two weeks since I’ve been able to go crabbing with daddy. One week we went to the mountains…then last week work wouldn’t let me have time to go…so I was chomping at the bit to go Monday! Peeler season is finishing up…and I hoped we’d have a good day. I was twenty minutes early getting there…but five minutes later than I usually am…and daddy threatened to dock me…I laughed and reminded him he doesn’t pay me anything and the only thing he can dock is his boat and he doesn’t do that too well either 
…yep…off to a good start:smiley:. Daddy loves picking on me…so I knew I was in for a full day! Weather and water were great…got a little choppy on muddy bay as we “fetched” 10 pots out of there to move back ?n to the creeks. We had a few interesting things happen…like finding a solo cup in a pot… and a pot with four stingrays…ticked off ones at that …in it… The fact that all of a sudden daddy’s pot puller decided to run backwards…winding the wrong way and spitting the rope back out at me…we don’t know why it did that. We caught 237 peelers…which aren’t soft yet but are “ripe”. Dark pink colored on the bottom where they are getting ready to shed or "bust " out of their old shells. We had 17 soft ones…I was so sad about this 
. I call them yumm yumms… or creek spiders…daddy said he calls them minus…minus what I asked??..minus a buck and a quarter in my pocket he replied:sunglasses:. Pulled 19 pots left wide open and empty of even the male bait crabs he had put in them gone with the catch. That really makes me mad. Hate a thief! And heard that someone lost a hundred plus pots somehow. Another sad thing…ESP if they were cut…as that’s dead pots in the water. No one saw any floating bouys from them…so don’t know what happened. But multiply that by 50$ each…that’s a lot of loss . was sad for them. Caught three bull whiting in a pot…dinner for my daddy’s brother and wife along with a few of the crabs…haha…they were waiting for them in the yard
Oh yeah. Forgot something…
Yumm yumm creek spiders
miss’n fish’n
212 SEAHUNT CC
Sea Squirt 16
Seven fun facts about soft-shell crafts from The Post & Courier:
Here, seven more soft-shell truths:
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A soft-shell crab is soft because it’s tossed off its exoskeleton and hasn’t yet grown any replacement armor. The upshot for eaters is soft-shells can be eaten whole; no cracking required.
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Once a crab sheds its shell, it remains in its naked, unprotected state for just a few short hours before sprouting a new exoskeleton. To make sure they don’t miss the soft-shell window, harvesters capture crabs before they molt and then keep them in a holding tank.
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Before frying, soft-shells qualify as a healthy snack, with stats roughly analogous to those of a hard-boiled egg. A soft-shell crab has 83 calories.
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Crabs around the world are served up in their soft-shell state, but blue crabs reign along the Atlantic coast.
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The interplay of a soft-shell crab’s salty-sweet flavor and its distinctive crispness largely accounts for the critter’s tabletop popularity, so don’t undermine its texture by steaming or boiling. Softies taste best when deep-fried, pan-fried, broiled or grilled. Deep-frying is the most common way of preparing a soft-shell: When plopped between two slices of white bread with a tomato slice and mayo, it’s known as a “spider sandwich.”
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If purchasing soft-shell crabs from a seafood market, look for crabs with their appendages attached. The crabs shouldn’t be wrapped in cellophane. And while it’s fine to ask a fishmonger to clean live crabs for you, be wary of soft-shells that were cleaned before packaging.
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According to folklore, crabs like to ditch their exoskeletons under a full moon: The soft-shell season’s start is often pegged to the first full moon in May. But there’s no scientific evidence linking crab behavior to lunar cycles. It’s possible that spring tides, which are correlated with moon phases, provide more protection for molting crabs.