Most Marylanders would say the joys of living on the Chesapeake Bay are the crabs. Steamed up, with Old Bay, beer, ready to pick using a mallet or butter knife. Just as common as the joys of eating them, are complaints about their cost. They go hand in hand.
At Ford’s Seafood in Rock Hall, a bushel of number one’s is $260. At Chester River Seafood they’re $290. Prices are about the same everywhere you look. Those who hear these complaints often are watermen, dropping crabs off at the restaurants.
This blend of unique men, born and raised on the water, get up before sunrise. They labor against waves, the sun, sea nettles, eels, the wind, queasy journalists, and boat maintenance.
As a crabber of over forty years, Robert Ingledue, put it, there once was a time crabbing was a way to make good money. He remembers the boom period. Every line in the water he pulled up, could possibly yield a bushel — about 60 large crabs.
Not now. On July 31, he had 36 lines in the water at Rock Hall. He pulls up 12 a day. He doesn’t usually get a bushel these days off one line.
“I’ll settle for half of that right now,” he said.
So, about half the yield? And still fishing with the same amount of effort? Pretty much the definition of a fishery in trouble.
These watermen are not getting rich off crabs right now. That much is evident. Ingledue explained why that is. There are less crabs out there. There’s less space to run lines. There are invasive species eating them. Blue catfish in abundance.
Before Blue Catfish, watermen blamed Striped Bass, which do, indeed, eat crabs. Pretty soon they'll be blaming Red Drum and Cobia.
And in Ingledue’s opinion, regulations in place to ensure that money can’t be made from the crabs out there. He pointed out that there are even more limitations near the fall, when the cooler water brings out the crabs. And retailers charge double of what comes off the boat, and can be particular about what they pick. Add inflation to the mix, and you’ve got a set up for not so good economic conditions for many watermen.
Ingledue’s boat, Rambling Rose, cost him $25,000, he’s had had to have a fuel pump and fuel lines and other repairs which cost him another $25,000. The typical annual boat maintenance runs another $1,000. Ingledue doesn’t trot line, he works with pots. With 25 on a line — the end are either red or green markers for north and south — he controls a reeling apparatus, a winder, lifting the pots up, saving time and effort from leaning over. The winder costs roughly another $1600, and at $100 a spool and 1,000 feet of line, it’s easy to see how overhead adds up. That’s not incl uding fuel.
Fortunately, crabs are pretty robust, but variable from year to year, largely because of weather. If we have a good recruitment this year, crabs may be abundant in a another year or two, prices will be low, and the watermen will be complaining about that.
No comments:
Post a Comment