By Kent Priestley
- Introduction
- Peelers Few & Far Between
- Caught in the Act
- The Rising Demand for Soft Crabs
- Download the article
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Peelers few and far between
Most valuable among them are the “peelers,” immature
crabs poised to loosen their old shells and form new ones. Crabs perform
this molting process as many as 25 times before reaching their adult
dimensions. Free of their hard domes, crab bodies are limp and exceedingly
vulnerable to predators. Which is bad news for crabs, but good news for
people.
Soft
crabs are a seasonal must-have on menus all along the Eastern seaboard.
Fried, broiled or sautéed, the tender, delicately flavored crabs
can fetch more than $1 apiece wholesale, and have become a bread-and-butter
market item for Outer Banks fishermen coming off the lean winter months.
Blue crabs begin to shed their shells in late April, and the heaviest harvesting comes in May and June. Shedding continues through mid-September, and sometimes goes on longer if the weather stays warm and the crabs don’t migrate to deeper water. But on this day, few peeler crabs have made their way into Benny Rippons’ pots.
“There ain’t many peelers on the bottom,’’ Rip sighs. “This is the worst season I’ve seen.”
Since he last checked them, his 60-odd pots have scared up only a half-bushel worth of peelers. Swings in the harvest come as little surprise to Rip, though. At 33 he’s crabbed nearly half his life, but readily concedes that the hunted, not the hunter, holds most of the answers. “Anytime I think I know something, it doesn’t work, “ he says. “I try to do the same thing every year, but it ain’t never the same.”
Typically, hard crabs are lured to wire pots with a piece of menhaden, an oily fish they find irresistible. Peeler crabs, though, are different. Peelers are coaxed into the traps by love, or something like it. Rip baits each pot with a male crab, called a “jimmy,” before lowering it into the sound. Female crabs, called “sooks,” lie below, waxing amorous, their claws tinged with streaks of lipstick red. Ready to shed one last time before reaching sexual maturity, they scuttle into the peeler pots for safe haven and the promise of a mate.
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