How we crabbed when I was a teenager.
My friend Ron had a little Snark "Wildflower" sailboat. We'd take it out on the Chesapeake Bay
sans mast, but with a little outboard.
We'd putter out... wherever and fish for... whatever. In those days, typically bluefish. Fun as
heck to catch, even if small. Pound for pound, about the meanest fish extant.
If the catch was...
uninspiring, we'd cut up one (sometimes
the one) fish and tie chunks of it on some rope(s), putter into shallow water, and throw the ropes in (well... you know...
one end of each rope). We'd put 'em out all around the boat then start going around, giving a little tug on each one. If we felt a little resistance, we'd bring the rope up.
Here's the thing about crabs: They are
so greedy, they won't let go of the bait until and unless they're lifted out of the water. Then, and only then, they'll realize
something's up and - clearly with bitterness and regret - let go. As one lifts the
beautiful swimmer clear of the water, one reaches out a
crab net under the lucky crustacean, and into the net he (ideally) drops.
Take 'em home, hose 'em off, season liberally with Old Bay, and steam them 'til they turn red (Nature having provided a built in "we're ready" thermometer).
Eat with copious amounts of beer, ideally on a hot summer evening as the sun sets, and with the ball game on the radio. It is a truly multi-sensory experience: taste, smell, sight, and touch... the many sharp bits on the shell of a crab produce small but clean incisions into one's skin, into which the Old Bay seeps -- to suffer pain whilst eating crabs is, truly, to live!
Heck, I am getting
a little nostalgic now.
