Crabbing the Chester River

At 4:30 AM, my phone alarm started going off. The nape of my neck was slick with sweat from a night sleeping with the windows open and the balmy night air wafting in. I didn't hit snooze for fear that I would turn it off entirely and run the risk of being left behind. My father-in-law is a serious business kind of man, and I wasn't trying to disturb his schedule of leaving by 5:00 AM.

Shortly after I had turned off my alarm, my husband poked his head in to make sure I was up. I closed the windows, put my contacts on, changed out of my pajamas, and pulled a hat over my frizzy hair. Still too early to think about coffee or breakfast, the three of us headed out the door with Chip, our Chocolate Lab puppy, in tow. Even he was still groggy as he tried, with lazy enthusiasm, to give us his best wagging tail greeting.

We were on the road by 5:00 AM, and it took us about an hour to get to The Shipyard, a road with a boat ramp at the end of it, along the Chester River. I held Chip as my father-in-law backed the boat into the water and my husband secured it to the dock. They unloaded the cooler and our coats and told me to hop in. We were on our way down the river by 6:30 AM.

The fog hung low and the only sounds were the hum of the boat motor and the gentle lap of the water as we cut through the river. When it opened up a few minutes later, seagulls swooped across a painted sky, crying into the still morning. I watched as we passed an old boat house sitting on the bend. Chip fell in and out of a light sleep, interested and confused as to what adventure we were taking him on. It didn't seem long before my husband and father-in-law were lowering the anchor and preparing to throw out the bait line - a thick rope with noose-like extensions, each of which holding a chicken neck - each end held up by two empty neon plastic gas cans.

We waited a few minutes, drove the boat back to the beginning of the line, and hulled the rope onto the reel. The chain clanked around the reel before the smooth rope began, and then, one by one, each chicken neck began emerging from the cloudy river. There was a rhythmic plunk as it turned over the reel and slinked back into the water. My husband did the first couple runs, keeping his eye on the next bait and holding the net low to the water. If a crab were attached to a bait, he would scoop underneath it as it dropped and turn it over into a bin on deck. My father-in-law kept the boat straight along the line, offering the occasional, "Somethin's comin'. I can feel it on the line. Keep that net low." At the end of each run, the rope was taken off the reel, where it would fall back to the bottom of the river.

When I stepped up to dip, the advice became more in-depth. "You wanna turn your body the other way, there you go. Hold your net on the other side of ya, and make sure to keep it low. Scoop under 'em when they come up. You gotta get real low in the water, or you'll miss 'em. Then just turn and drop 'em in the bucket." My father-in-law held a net too just in case there were two crabs on the line, one right after the other.

This time, as opposed to the first time I went with them years ago, I felt less nervous. It didn't feel as intimidating or like there was a lot of pressure to catch them. My muscles were tight, ready to jump when I saw a crab rise from the bottom of the riverbed. By the end of the morning, I had only missed three. "One wadn't big enough, one dropped off early, but the last one was a big one," my father-in-law said. "I can't make you feel better about that last one." I already knew what I had done wrong: I didn't dip low enough.

Throughout the morning, they explained to me the difference between males and females - females had fiery orange and red on their claws, and the bottom of their shells were shaped like the Washington Capital. Non-commercial crabbers weren't allowed to keep them. Males had to be longer than 5 1/4" and their bottom shells were shaped like the Washington Monument. Their claws were the regular blue.

When our runs produced less than three crabs, we reeled in the line, pulled up the anchor, and headed back to shore. We floated and I held Chip as they pulled each chicken neck from its noose and tossed them into the river. Water ran down their arms and dripped off their elbows. They did it methodically, easily, from years of experience and without carrying much of a conversation. As we passed other boats on the water, I noticed that my husband and father-in-law lied about the amount of crabs we caught when asked how we did.

"Maybe half a bushel," my father-in-law would say.

"That's it?" They'd question.

"Yeah, not a good year," he'd reply.

I guess that's how it is with most things that take work to acquire. My mom and I do that when we hunt for Morels in the spring. I know people who never give away their hunting spots.

Once we loaded up the truck, it was a quiet, sleepy ride back to Rising Sun. Chip was sound asleep in the back seat with me, and my husband nodded off in the front. The crabs were taken to the family store, where they were seasoned and cooked, to be picked up by us later. The first question Pop Pop asked me when he saw us was, "How many'd you miss?" I raised my eyebrow and said, "Three."

"Were they big?"

"Only one."

"Well that's not bad, Ash."

I grinned. It felt good to have the McMullen men approve of my crabbing abilities, especially as a novice. A couple weeks later, they invited me to go with them again, but I declined. It was such a perfect, peaceful, enjoyable experience at the end of the season. I would just hold on to that one, and eagerly anticipate next summer when I could have the opportunity to go again.