#8 CRAB INDUSTRY OF CHESAPEAKE BAY. 
In hot weather the crabber often reaches the crabbing grounds at 
3 or 4 o’clock in the morning. Crabs are thought to bite more readily 
in the early hours and the catch can be delivered to the dealer before 
the heat of the day, and consequently less risk of the crabs being 
killed by the heat is incurred. The line is set each morning and lifted 
when the catch is completed. It is coiled temporarily in the boat 
until the crabs are unloaded at the crab house. Then it is gone over 
and any empty snoods or bights are rebaited and the line carefully 
coiled in the stern of the boat, some salt is sprinkled over it to pre- 
serve the bait, and the whole covered with a rubber sheet, old blanket, 
or the like for the night. The bait commonly used is inedible beef 
or sheep tripe, some horsemeat, eels, skates, etc., being used in the 
spring when the crabs are not so active and consequently do not tear 
the bait to pieces so readily. A good day’s catch with the trot-line 
is three to four barrels when the line is.run by hand and twice that 
when run by power or sailboat. 
Most of the soft crabs obtained by the use of the trot-line are 
those resulting from the “shedding out” of the female peelers of 
the pairs of mating crabs, or ‘‘doublers.”” The male, carrying the 
female, seizes the bait and is drawn up, and both are caught. At 
nearly all points outside of the region where the scrape is used, it was 
found that more than three-fourths of the peelers bemg kept to shed 
were females obtained in this way. 
All crabs, caught by any of the methods described above, may be 
culled in compliance with the laws, as they are brought aboard the 
boat. Many crabbers carry a gauge with which to measure the crabs 
as they are caught. This consists of a flat piece of wood, something 
on the order of aruler. A shallow notch, about one-half inch deep, 
is cut in one side. This notch is 3 or 5 inches long, depending on 
whether designed to measure soft crabs and peelers or hard crabs. 
The former are compared with the 3-inch notch, the latter with the 
5. In some cases, those fishing for hard crabs fasten a similar gauge 
in the bottom of the net used in taking the crabs off the trot-line. 
Thus, at a glance, a crab may be measured fairly accurately as it lies 
in the net while being transferred to the barrel in the boat. 
HARD CRABS. 
Hard crabs are taken by the use of the scrape, the trot-line, and the 
dredge. The former two instruments were described above and no 
further discussion of their use seems necessary at this point. 
Drepce.—The boats (PI. ITI, fig. 1) used in dredging crabs during 
the winter season are about 50 to 60 feet in length and equipped with 
both engine and sail. The dredge (PI. III, fig. 2) varies from 5 to 7 
feet in width and is constructed on much the same plan as the scrape. 
It has, however, a row of teeth about 4 inches long on the side which 
drags on the bottom. The bag is only about 2 feet in length. The 
lower part of it is constructed of iron meshing, the upper of cotton. 
Two dredges are operated at atime, one being worked from each side 
of the boat. A chain a little over 1 inch in diameter is used to drag 
each dredge. The chain passes over a roller on the side of the boat, a 
little forward of the center, and around a pulley attached to a stout 
post placed upright in the mid line of the boat. Thence the chain 
passes down and around a windlassin the hold. For each dredge there 
