A Record Breaking Day!

I hereby recognize Wednesday, July 24, 2013 as the day Piers Park and McDonough Sailing Center set their summer 2013 record for most crabs and lobsters caught in one day. We started off the day at Piers Park Sailing Center with our normal routine of hauling in the lobster trap. Instead of finding any lobsters inside, we quickly saw that the entire floor of the trap was crawling with crabs. We had crabs of all sizes, species and even a few egg-bearing females. After a somewhat slow week in catches, the kids (and summer staff) were ecstatic! Besides the sheer number of crabs caught at once, the most exciting part was finding the pregnant spider crab. It was our first spider crab of the summer at Piers Park and those creepy looking things are definitely a hit with the kids. What was even more inspiring was that as soon as the kids noticed she had eggs, they immediately wanted to throw her back in the water to ensure future generations of spider crabs. At the end of the day there were too many crabs to have an organized crab race so we emptied our tank onto the dock and watched the crabs’ mad dash back to the water – the few stragglers were herded in the right direction.

Showing off our catch!

In high spirits, we headed over to McDonough Sailing Center. As usual, we were greeted at the gate by a handful of kids waiting to use the fishing rods and crab traps. These kids have perfected the technique of combining underwater camera and crab trap to, not only haul in huge catches, but also get some amazing, up-close-and-personal views of crabs. To add to the catch count, we boated out to the lobster trap to find 4 large lobsters waiting for us. The kids learned how to measure carapace length and after determining that they all met the legal size requirements, 4 lucky kids got to bring home dinner.

Underwater camera and crab trap in action

Lobster photoshoot

Hoping for lots more lobsters to come!

Sarah C