It is fact that the watermen have been finding a bounty of crabs so far this season as they work the waters off the lower Eastern Shore. John Tull, a crabber, told that the season has been good since the beginning. He added that first came the best run of “peelers” – crabs just about to shed their shells. Tull is finding a respectable catch of both soft and hard crabs all around Tangier Sound.
Robbie Tyler, another crabber, caught a whopping 52 bushels on Monday. According to him it is the best he has seen for this time of year. He said that new rules designed to reduce the catch of female crabs don’t take effect until fall, but the crabbers are happy to make what they can now, ensuring a steady supply of crabs through July Fourth and other summer events. But now the state Department of Natural Resources overreacted and called for short season.
David Dize, another Crisfield crabber, said that they didn’t need this much regulation. The state officials say the bump in supply won’t last, and they believe their plan to cut the harvest of spawning females by 34 percent is the recipe for a long-term rebound. Lynn W. Fegley, who supervises the state’s blue crab program at the Department of Natural Resources, told that the authority is not disputing that it’s been a good spring.
Commercial fishermen say they have a right to question the wisdom of DNR scientists, who shrugged off their protests before installing rules aimed at cutting the female crab harvest. Many watermen say they have little faith in DNR’s winter dredge survey, which the agency says it has used to predict the number of crabs likely to be in the bay each year for almost two decades.
