Tondeleo: Doc has been trying to get me to go crabbing again. He had me drive him up to Bryans Road to Chuck's Butcher Shop and bought a bunch of bull lips and turkey necks and wanted to have an experiment to see which one the crabs like best. I have never acquired the taste for Blue Crabs and I don't like the fact that they have to be cooked alive and I don't like handling the bait.
Doc: Tondy, it's cause you're a sissy. Even Marilyn likes goin' crabbin'. Bull lips ain't really lips, Tondy. It's really his butt! Ha! Nah, it ain't his butt. It's just the tough meat off a cow or bull's face. Ain't no good for eatin' so it's cheap bait, an' it lasts a long time if you're using a trotline. And bad as the crabbin' is this season, you need it to last and you need something crabs like. They love bull lips.
Turkey necks work good, too. We use 'em on trotlines an traps and hand lines. But I'm likin' bull lips now, too an; we wanna see which ones the crabs go for the most. Turkey necks or bull lips.
Tondeleo: Ok - now Doc, explain to me more about what you call crab pots. They're not really pots, are they? Aren't they more like cages? Tell me and the people who will read your blog more about these crab pots.
Doc: NO!! It ain't no pot, Tondy! You COOK your crabs in a pot, an' there is a crab pot that you catch 'em in, but it ain't a pot, The crab pot what you catch 'em in is a big square cage made out of galvanised chicken wire. Got too rooms in it. Upstairs an' downstairs.
Ones I use got two throats or openin's downstairs, They can get in easy but they can't get out. In the middle is the bait box where you put the turkey necks or bull lips. That parts made out of hardware cloth so the crabs cain't get to the bait an' eat it.
The top part of the crab pot has holes cut in the floor with a little tunnel so the crabs can get up there pretty easy, but cain't get back down. The ones I use also got little cull rings in the tops so little crabs can get out, but the big ones, the keepers cain't.
Tondeleo: But why does a crab go in there in the first place? How does it know to go in the bottom doors?
Doc: They ain't doors, they's openin's! When the crab smells the bait, he tries to get to it, so he circles round an round til he finds the openin.' Then when he gets in, he cain't get to the bait and knows he's trapped. What's a crab do when he gets trapped? He naturally goes up, towards the top of the water, That's where we want him to go! He stays there til we pull the pot up out of the water and yank him out. Him and his buddies.
Tondeleo: How do you know where your crab pot is? You throw it off your boat - how do you get it out of the water? How do you keep the tide from moving it? The people on your blog might need to know that…
Doc: Then the people on that blob ain't using theys heads. First off, you pit a couple of bricks inside or do what I do which is I frame out the bottom of it in rebar…
Tondeleo: "Rebar," I don't know that term…
Doc: Rebar!!! Rebar!!! What you use when you make a sidewalk or a driveway. It's a pig iron metal bar for strengthening the concrete. You get it up at BR Supply in Bryans Road. You put it around the bottom of your crab pot. It works as a anchor to keep the pot from drifting. Then you tie a line to it an on top of that you tie a Clorox bottle or a ZEP bottle if you run a body shop, an' that's your marker buoy. And you write your name on it with a magic marker and put other marks on it so no one can mistake it for theirs, and if they do, you can catch 'em red handed.
Oh yeah, and you put weights on the line so it don't float around at low tide and get cut by a boat propeller. You cotta think of everything Tondy. It ain't as easy as you think.
Tondeleo: Anything else we need to bring in the boat?
Doc: Of COURSE, man! You need a scap net to scoop up any strays. You need some bushel baskets. You need GLOVES. You need a culling stick to measure if the crab is five inches or not. If not, you gotta throw 'em back.
One more thing. Drinks an' sandwiches. Let's go into the Lunch Box and buy some grub an' I'll tell you more about how to be a good crabber. At more than $100 a bushel, it's a good thing to know how to do. Plus, Dave what owns the Lunch Box likes the way you talk that English an' drink tea with milk in it like a little girl.
