It takes good water, skill and some time to shed blue 

 crabs. It also takes live crabs, ready to molt. And 

 North Carolina has an abundance of those. 

 Wayne Wescott says that thousands of North Carolina's 

 coastal residents have access to the resources they need to 

 begin producing soft crabs. 



More and more people, Wescott says, are turning to crab- 

 shedding as a hobby, an avocation, or a career. Every week 

 he fields dozens of 'questions — How much time does it take? 

 Is it costly to get started? How much money can I make? 

 Wescott says the answers depend on what sort of crab-shed- 

 ding you want to do. He recommends that people begin with 

 some reading and thinking, before they invest their money. 

 Here are some of the basics: 



Finding 'peelers' 



Peeler crabs, or those ready to molt and become soft 

 crabs, are harvested most of the year (except in winter, 

 when blue crabs are dormant) in the estuary. You can catch 

 them one-by-one in small dip nets along the shoreline. This 

 is a laborious method, but one that pays off in peeler crabs 

 in good condition. 



You can catch female peelers by "baiting" a wire trap — 

 called a crab pot — with a large male crab. Virginia crabbers 

 have been successful with a "peeler pound," a variety of 

 pound net that directs crabs into a submerged trap. 

 Louisiana crabbers have used a "bush line" — branches of 

 wax myrtle tied to a floated line — which attracts peelers in 

 search of cover. 



Many crab-shedders simply use one of the traditional 

 crab-fishing methods, such as pots, trawls, or trotlines, and 



Illustration bv Sue Sunday 



'BUSTING 1 INTO THE BUSINESS OF 



Soft-Shell 

 Crabbing 



sort peelers and soft crabs out of the hard-crab catch. Wes- 

 cott says that some crab-shedding operations can acquire 

 soft crabs and peelers by arranging to buy them from hard- 

 crab fishermen. 



Identifying peelers 



However you get your crabs, the trick to successful shed- 

 ding is recognizing the peeler. Experienced crabbers often 

 look at the translucent edge of the crab's paddle fin, where 

 subtle colorings betray the ready-to-molt crab. On the 

 following page is a list of some of the telltale signs. The es- 

 timated number of days to molt are given for crabs measur- 

 ing at least three and one-half inches, point to point. 

 Smaller crabs molt more frequently. 



• White-line peelers are in the earliest phase of pre- 

 molting. They show a light, almost transparent line along 

 the outer edge of the last two joints of the paddle fin. These 

 peelers are usually at least five and sometimes 14 days away 

 Continued on next page 



The peeler pound guides the crab along the net and into the trap 



