I love double entendres. When I was a small child we used to go crabbing on the intracoastal waterway. Too many people rely on crab traps that they drop in the water and leave for a few hours to do the work for them. I learned do to it the fun way.
The gear required was simple. All we used was heavy cotton twine, a small piece of wood (mine was a bit of scrap shoe moulding), a long handled landing net, and an optional lead bank sinker.
First, we'd have to get bait. The first option was fish heads, which most fish markets would give us free of charge. The second was chicken necks. Then, we piled back in the giant blue Buick wagon to head for the waterway.
When we arrived on the shore, the first thing we would see was the moving sand. Well, not the sand, but the thousands of tiny fiddler crabs running back to their burrows. Setting up to cast was easy...tie the sinker on the line, tie the bait, Peel off some line, and toss it like David facing Goliath. The next part was hard.
You pick up the line and start to retrieve with your fingers, inch by inch. You can feelthe crab tugging at the fleshy bait as you pull in that line ever so slowly. Now, get that net in the water and rest the end of the handle on your knee.
As you get more of the line toward you, you can see what's pulling at the bait. It's a small blue crab, just moving along with his supper. You pull the bait slowly until it's in the net and then lift the net from the sand. One crab goes in the basket for dinner. Now do it again. We spent hours crabbing. Mom would pack lunch and drinks for us. When we had enough in the basket, it was back in the Buick and straight to the kitchen to make crab casserole.
This style of fishing helped me to develop patience. You can't rush things, or you lose the prize. We could all stand to exercise a bit of patience in our wireless world.
One of the saddest days of my childhood was when we drove to our usual crabbing spot and found it had been developed over the winter.
The gear required was simple. All we used was heavy cotton twine, a small piece of wood (mine was a bit of scrap shoe moulding), a long handled landing net, and an optional lead bank sinker.
First, we'd have to get bait. The first option was fish heads, which most fish markets would give us free of charge. The second was chicken necks. Then, we piled back in the giant blue Buick wagon to head for the waterway.
When we arrived on the shore, the first thing we would see was the moving sand. Well, not the sand, but the thousands of tiny fiddler crabs running back to their burrows. Setting up to cast was easy...tie the sinker on the line, tie the bait, Peel off some line, and toss it like David facing Goliath. The next part was hard.
You pick up the line and start to retrieve with your fingers, inch by inch. You can feelthe crab tugging at the fleshy bait as you pull in that line ever so slowly. Now, get that net in the water and rest the end of the handle on your knee.
As you get more of the line toward you, you can see what's pulling at the bait. It's a small blue crab, just moving along with his supper. You pull the bait slowly until it's in the net and then lift the net from the sand. One crab goes in the basket for dinner. Now do it again. We spent hours crabbing. Mom would pack lunch and drinks for us. When we had enough in the basket, it was back in the Buick and straight to the kitchen to make crab casserole.
This style of fishing helped me to develop patience. You can't rush things, or you lose the prize. We could all stand to exercise a bit of patience in our wireless world.
One of the saddest days of my childhood was when we drove to our usual crabbing spot and found it had been developed over the winter.
1 comment:
Crabbing can indeed answer life's philosophical questions. While you mush through the black low-tide muck and let it ooze up through your beat-up "tennie shoes" and the delightful brackish sea-creature/mud/seagrass aroma permeates your skin and clothes; while you stand very still waiting for the skittery scoundrels to approach your offering of irresistibly stinky fish entrails as they wave about in the waterway; while you anticipate the thrill of convincing Mr. Crab of his complete dining security; and of course while Mr. Crab sups, and as you dream of panned crabmeat, Mrs. Mosquito and her entire clan hungrily feast upon you.
There is nothing like it. The exhilarating crisp salty air, the waterway jumping with shrimp and fish, the slippy-sloppy mud bank alive with scuttling fiddler crabs all clear the cobwebs out of your brain, renewing and refreshing.
We can endure a lot of black mucky ooze. We might not always "get our Crab," but we'll always have Paris (uh... Sunset)!
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