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Stone crabs are worth the challenge

By ED WALKER
Published October 14, 2006

There are plenty of productive things to do on the water this weekend. High on the list will be catching stone crabs. Divers and recreational trappers will have a great opportunity to bring home dinner Sunday when the season officially opens. Preliminary commercial reports indicate that there will be a bumper crop.

The two most common methods of recreational harvest are the use of traps and hand catching while diving.

Last winter, after several seasons of diving in cold, often murky water, I decided to try trapping. I purchased five plastic "milk crate" style models from a commercial fishing supply house and assembled them in my back yard.

First the sides of the box were snapped together. Concrete was then poured into the bottomless boxes to make floors and give them weight to stay put during the strong winter cold fronts. Next I affixed my name and address permanently to each trap as required by state law. My buoys were painted a particular shade of yellow, so I could see them from a distance, and each was marked with "R" to indicate that it was a recreational trap.

That was the hard part. A few days before the opening of the season the traps were set in 15 feet of water in a row, over a strip of rocky bottom that I selected from my grouper fishing coordinates. In each trap was a large fish head or whole mullet for bait.

On Oct. 15 my wife, Janet, and I returned to see how we fared. I pulled the first trap aboard. The fuzzy striped legs sticking out through the side slats were the first sign that we had done well. There were 12 or 15 good-sized crabs, nearly all of which had legal sized claws. Although law allows the harvest of both claws if they are large enough, we only took the biggest one from each crustacean. The other traps yielded similar results.

By the end of the line we had about 7 pounds of claws ranging from medium to extra large. The minimum legal size claw is 2 (two and three quarters) inches from the tip of the lower claw tip or finger, to the first joint. Raw claws should be stored at air temperature, in a box or bucket on the boat. Never put them on ice or chill them! It will cause the meat to stick to the shell.

Back at the house we boiled our catch for 10 minutes then placed it all directly into ice water to help separate the meat from the shell. From there we gave each claw a few taps with the back of a butter knife to crack them, extracted the delicate meat, and then dipped it hot melted butter. Maybe it's just me, but the free ones always seem taste just a little better than those that cost $20 a pound.

Those folks looking for a little more adventure in their crab gathering will be found underwater Sunday morning, sticking their hands into holes to grab the stubborn creatures. While there is some risk of being pinched, it seldom happens to experienced divers. The key is that stonies are notoriously slow. This allows you to pull them out into the open and grab the claws before they can get to your fingers. There is no room for hesitation, however. You must grab or not grab. Halfway may get you into trouble.

Regardless of how you procure them, recreational bag limits are the same for everyone; one gallon of claws per person or two gallons per vessel, whichever is less. Anyone in possession must have a valid Florida fishing license. No more than five traps may be used per person.

[Last modified October 13, 2006, 22:37:33]