Crab Safari 2009

There’s nothing in the world quite like eating Dungeness Crab, conveniently found a short distance from pretty much anywhere in Western Washington. I’ve been going crabbing for years on Guemes Island and fondly remember the days in which one could walk along the shore during a low tide and garner a limit of six within an hour.
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Preparing the Crab Traps
Those days are sadly gone as the season doesn’t start until late July, long after the crab have moved to deeper parts of the water. Also, the size of what’s considered a legal catch has slowly crept larger and you’re now allowed to keep five instead of six.

Still, we make at least an annual crustacean gathering trek, and this time we were joined by our good friends The Johnsons and their kids.

We started things out by baiting the six crab traps that we were to toss into the water. One can use lots of different smelly and disgusting things to do this, from dog food through fish heads. My father in law likes to use cockles whose shells are smashed. It must be the natural way to attract crab.

Our group of four dropped the pots and came back to shore to give the shelled diners a chance to partake in their last meal before they found themselves in the business end of a bucket. We left the traps out for a couple of hours and then headed back out to reap the rewards of a bountiful harvest.
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Michael and Matthew: Anxious to Get Going

Or so we thought. The first trap looked promising as we lifted five keepers out, sending them to their holding cell. Unfortunately, the remaining traps weren’t as generous and we ended up with a total of ten to split between two families. Not bad, but far from the best we’ve seen and about half of what we would have had if we were to hit our limit.

We hauled the critters back to the boiling whirlpool bath that awaited them where they spent 15 minutes cooking. Then came my least favorite part. Removing the big shell and cleaning the lungs, guts and whatever other vile non-white-meat things exist in crab. I know that many parts of the world eat the WHOLE crab but that’s where I get off the train.
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The Crab in Various Stages of Processing

Finally, they were give a last rinse and put in Ziploc bags, ready to be put in the cooler and taken home. Crab Safari 2009 is history.