Crab pots await duty in the estuary. 



crossing over to crabbing, following 

 poor harvests of clams, scallops and 

 oysters in the past few years. 



"As far as a year-round thing, it's 

 pretty good," Howell says. In North 

 Carolina, crabbing provides a steady 

 income for him and his family. He 

 fishes all but six weeks from Christ- 

 mas to mid-February. That's why he 

 moved to Carteret County 11 years 

 ago from Long Island, N.Y., where 

 the season lasted only two months. 



Tradition draws others to the 

 fishery in North Carolina. Since the 

 1800s, commercial fishermen in the 

 state have sought the savory crusta- 

 cean for local and regional markets. 

 Over the years, crabbing has stayed 

 much the same with few advances in 

 gear. 



Before 1936, fishermen primarily 

 courted crabs with trotlines or wire- 

 mesh scrapers that looked like 

 baskets on a stick. That year, 

 fishermen in the Chesapeake Bay 

 introduced the crab pot, a 2-by-2 

 mesh box with chambers for catch- 

 ing and most importantly — keeping 

 — crabs. 



Trawls, which graze the waters 

 for crabs, and hydraulic pot pullers 



March's cold weather 

 sends most blue crabs 

 burrowing in the 

 muddy bottomland. 



made the work easier too. But for the 

 most part, crabbing remains a one- 

 man, small-boat fishery in North 

 Carolina. About 90 percent of 

 today's crabbers use crab pots for 

 fishing, estimates Street, the DMF 

 research section chief. 



Tar Heel fishermen who trawl 

 typically ply the waters around 

 Pamlico Sound in the winter, when 

 crabs bury in the deep waters. 

 "There are more trawlers around 

 here than there are pots," says 

 fisherman Levi Hopkins of Beaufort 

 County. 



When the water warms to 50 

 degrees, he and other fishermen rig 

 their boats for crabbing. And as long 

 as their nets fill with crabs, they keep 

 fishing. 



"You go different places all the 

 time," he says. "You don't stay in 

 one place. You move around." 



Unlike Howell, Hopkins rotates 

 fisheries throughout the year to make 

 a living. 



"I do a little bit of all of it, 

 whatever I can make the most money 

 at," Hopkins says. "I think you make 

 your advantages. Whoever works the 

 hardest comes out on top. If you're 

 going to make any money out of it, 

 you work hard." 



Hard work is one thing crabbers 

 agree it takes to make a living. 



"As fisheries go, it's probably a 

 relatively inexpensive thing to get 

 into," says Bob Hines, Sea Grant's 

 marine advisory agent at Pine Knoll 

 Shores. "But it's not cheap." 



Howell invests about $1,200 for 

 every 100 crab pots he buys. With 

 zinc to protect the pots from corro- 

 sion, and rope and buoys, expenses 

 add up to about $15 to $20 per pot. 



4 MAY/JUNE 1992 



