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Speaker 1: You're joining us from the Walleye grounds of Lake of
Speaker 1: the Woods, Ontario, but we're here to talk about the
Speaker 1: life of a crabber in Chesapeak Bay back in America.
Speaker 1: Uh Luke McFadden, thanks for coming on the show.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: First question for you, though, before we get into crab
Speaker 1: and we're here for the Fish Eater Classic Fishing Tournament.
Speaker 1: You've been spending a couple of days in a boat
Speaker 1: with dirt myth any takeaways.
Speaker 5: I like him, man, he's cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's man.
Speaker 4: He's like Not only is he like, you know, doing
Speaker 4: all the filming and this and that and has somehow
Speaker 4: been able to like Bob and weave every single hook
Speaker 4: flying past his head, he's also like you know, he's
Speaker 4: part of the team.
Speaker 2: Man, he's keep morale up.
Speaker 5: He's like he's doing it every situation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I find that every situation is better with dirt round.
Speaker 2: I agree. So you're you're you approve of the cameraman,
Speaker 2: I agree, I do.
Speaker 1: So tell me, like I've followed you for a long time.
Speaker 1: We've talked before, and I know the kind of like
Speaker 1: the basic outline is that that in Chesapeake Bay, like
Speaker 1: in the in the blue crab world, that tends to
Speaker 1: be a thing that.
Speaker 2: That people kind of inherit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, people come up in it and their
Speaker 1: kids come up in it.
Speaker 2: Is that true?
Speaker 1: Like it's a thing that's like there's a little bit
Speaker 1: of a I don't know, man, like it gets handed
Speaker 1: down generation to generation, that lifestyle.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you could call it like a hereditary disease in
Speaker 4: a lot of ways. But yeah, it's, uh, it's generally
Speaker 4: like a generational you know. So it's mostly like you know,
Speaker 4: you do it because your dad did it, and he
Speaker 4: did it because his dad did and he did it
Speaker 4: because there was no other option.
Speaker 2: You know what I meant, I got it, but you
Speaker 2: didn't inherit it.
Speaker 1: No, no walk me through that, like, because I mean,
Speaker 1: because you're a professional crabber, yeah, and have been for
Speaker 1: how many years?
Speaker 4: I mean this is I started on my own boat
Speaker 4: when I was eleven years old, or no, when I
Speaker 4: was sorry, eighteen years old. I'm thirty. So it's my
Speaker 4: I think this is my eleventh crab season. Got so
Speaker 4: it's been a little while.
Speaker 2: I think I've got my ten thousand and how many
Speaker 2: of those seats?
Speaker 1: Like not that there's a lot of similarity between crab
Speaker 1: and writing, but in writing, like you write for years
Speaker 1: with side jobs. Yeah, a lot of people do you
Speaker 1: write for years with side jobs and all of a
Speaker 1: sudden you're.
Speaker 2: Like, damn, yeah, I don't need the side job anymore, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, was it was? It was? It was it when.
Speaker 1: You're crabbing, you're all in and that's just what you're doing.
Speaker 1: Or did you have to kind of like did you
Speaker 1: have to kind of trickle into it?
Speaker 4: So, I mean definitely, like in the beginning, I mean
Speaker 4: it was like just a disaster for a very long time.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, dude, it was it was like, you know,
Speaker 4: a lot to learn quickly, steep learning curve, but you know,
Speaker 4: I was like it was like I was basically working
Speaker 4: in the winter time to be able to go crab
Speaker 4: it again in the spring, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: And I was just hustling anyway. I possibly could, you know,
Speaker 4: to continue to go in the beginning, you know, but
Speaker 4: I was just kind of committed to it, you know,
Speaker 4: I was like not going to let it fail.
Speaker 1: So why did you Why did you want to get
Speaker 1: into that anyway? What were you seeing that made you
Speaker 1: want to do it?
Speaker 4: I mean, I I started helping on a crab boat
Speaker 4: and I was like twelve, Just guys started taking me along,
Speaker 4: you know. I was just cutting fish and stuff like that,
Speaker 4: and I don't know, I just liked it out there.
Speaker 4: And when I was eighteen, I just decided I wanted to,
Speaker 4: you know, do it.
Speaker 2: And all when you were helping out, how would you
Speaker 2: get compensated?
Speaker 4: I mean I was getting paid, you know, not much,
Speaker 4: you know, pretty much nothing.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: When I was a little older, like sixteen seventeen, I
Speaker 4: was making a little bit more.
Speaker 5: But I mean I think the most I got I made.
Speaker 4: Like when I was breaking off to go do my
Speaker 4: own thing was like I think I was making like
Speaker 4: eighty five bucks a day or something like that. Okay,
Speaker 4: so you know, it wasn't much. It was cash, but
Speaker 4: it wasn't much. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Like, so you were you surrounded by where you grew up?
Speaker 1: Were you surrounded by crabbers?
Speaker 5: No, there's not many krabbers around at all.
Speaker 4: Like the area that I'm from, in particular, Pasadena is
Speaker 4: like there's a few, but it's not it's not common whatsoever.
Speaker 4: I think, like we did a headcount of the fleet.
Speaker 4: I think, like, guys are you know, out there making
Speaker 4: their living doing it? I think there's like six or
Speaker 4: eight of us left going out of the whole town.
Speaker 4: Oh no, there's some more north of us. There's a
Speaker 4: few south of us. There's a lot more on the
Speaker 4: Eastern Shore. Like I'm on the western shore of Maryland.
Speaker 4: On the eastern Shore, there's a lot more cravers. It's
Speaker 4: you know, way more common. But there's a whole you know,
Speaker 4: there's a lot less job opportunity over there. You know,
Speaker 4: it's a lot less developed, and you know, there's a
Speaker 4: lot more low country and whatever. So historically there's always
Speaker 4: a lot more crabs on the Eastern shore.
Speaker 2: Got it? But in your town, sixty eight guys go out, Yeah,
Speaker 2: there's not many. Yeah, tell me like, how are you guys?
Speaker 1: I mean, I've gone getting blue crabs little ways, like
Speaker 1: I mean, I've gone from just walking around picking them up,
Speaker 1: stringing the chicken necks and all that.
Speaker 2: How are you guys doing it?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 2: What does your day look like? How do you catch them?
Speaker 4: So we're crab potting?
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 4: So there's basically like two ways to commercially catch crabs
Speaker 4: around that, and it's one is a trot line. So
Speaker 4: you got that long, you know, line with inline baits,
Speaker 4: you know, and then you're running along with a dipper
Speaker 4: or a net.
Speaker 2: And I've done that with guys.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't know, one.
Speaker 2: Hundred chicken necks on the string yea, yeah, I got it.
Speaker 2: And there ain't nothing wrong with that, you know.
Speaker 4: That's a great way to go, And that's how everybody
Speaker 4: starts usually because not a lot of overhead you can
Speaker 4: do by yourself in the beginning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, good? And how many? How many? How many baits
Speaker 2: are beyond that line that you're running.
Speaker 4: Usually like you're running like you know, some of the
Speaker 4: bigger guys are running up to five thousand foot of line.
Speaker 4: Sometimes they'll break it up into like thousand foot or
Speaker 4: twelve hundred foot sections and then you know there's debate
Speaker 4: on how far you want your bait space, and you
Speaker 4: know there's some signs to it in terms of like
Speaker 4: you know, guys will have different lines with different space
Speaker 4: baits for different bottom, different times.
Speaker 2: Of the year all that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're talking that deal where like just for
Speaker 1: people listening, like it's the big long line with every
Speaker 1: what distance.
Speaker 4: It's usually like I would say the average I think
Speaker 4: ours are like seven foot seven or eight foot okay,
Speaker 4: seven or eight feet, no hooks, yeah, just bait.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So they either put in line like they'll either use
Speaker 4: like that old school like twisted like hemp line almost
Speaker 4: and they'll just push it together and then put the
Speaker 4: bait in the line. Yeah, that's like the old school
Speaker 4: way of doing it. Or now like a lot of
Speaker 4: guys like to run snoods is what they call it.
Speaker 4: So it's like a piece of bungee like probably six
Speaker 4: inches with a piece of like gas line, you know,
Speaker 4: you tie you tie it out in the end of
Speaker 4: the bungee and then double it over and stick the
Speaker 4: gas line over the loop. So it's like a you know,
Speaker 4: like a you can sent it down with the baits
Speaker 4: on it.
Speaker 2: I got it. That's kind of like the newer way
Speaker 2: to do it.
Speaker 4: A lot of guys like to run clam bags and
Speaker 4: all that stuff called called a snood.
Speaker 2: That's what comes off Turkey's head.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, I guess so right, And then.
Speaker 1: You string that sucker out and they're not hooked, they're
Speaker 1: just hanging onto the bait.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Crabs are kind of about a stubborn as the guys
Speaker 4: that go catch them, So they're just like, you know,
Speaker 4: they're in it for the They'll hold onto that thing
Speaker 4: all the way up.
Speaker 1: Man, you can you raise the lineup and just nab
Speaker 1: them off there as they drop free.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you got like an arm that hangs off the
Speaker 4: side of the boat, and then you pull up. There's
Speaker 4: a booy on either end. You pick up the buoy
Speaker 4: and put that on the arm, and then you drive
Speaker 4: the boat down the line. And as you're driving down
Speaker 4: the line isn't really moving, but you're picking the line up,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Are there dudes that do that by themselves?
Speaker 4: I would say most guys that do that do it
Speaker 4: that way, do it by themselves.
Speaker 2: Driving the boat.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah, I mean I I did it by myself.
Speaker 4: Most guys do because you ain't got to pay a helper,
Speaker 4: you know. So like a lot of times we will
Speaker 4: set the boats up kind of different, like I got
Speaker 4: a little trout line and boat. You Yeah, we got
Speaker 4: one that we built for like some of my helpers
Speaker 4: and everything they've been wanting to go.
Speaker 5: But like we even have it with it. The console
Speaker 5: is just an eight by eight piece.
Speaker 4: Of aluminum square two and you stand on the right
Speaker 4: side of the boat in between I mean, you know,
Speaker 4: the console on your left side, and then your rollers
Speaker 4: on your right and the steer wheels actually on like
Speaker 4: facing the starboard side, so that you can stand there
Speaker 4: and just run it steer with your left hand and
Speaker 4: then dip with your right hand, and then you got
Speaker 4: the call box in front of you, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean. So's you can run it as a one
Speaker 4: man band pretty easy. But they're like you'll see some
Speaker 4: goofy boats, but it's like there's always a reason they're
Speaker 4: set up kind of weird, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: It looks strange you're facing forward, you know, steering like this,
Speaker 4: but it allows you to do it by yourself.
Speaker 2: But then but your the main deal is running crab traps.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I'm potting. I'm crab potting, which is kind
Speaker 4: of some guys would argue, but it's I guess the
Speaker 4: more industrial, like larger scale. So I got gang lines,
Speaker 4: you know, we call them underwater lines, and it's twenty
Speaker 4: five pots connected to each other with a booy called
Speaker 4: a hawk on either end. So it's a like a
Speaker 4: booye with a five foot piece of PVC pipe through
Speaker 4: it with a weight at the bottom and then a
Speaker 4: f lag at the top, and then what's the term
Speaker 4: we call it a hawk?
Speaker 2: I have no idea.
Speaker 4: I've always wondered, because like a long lining, like deep
Speaker 4: sea long line, and they call it a bird, you know,
Speaker 4: and we call them hawks.
Speaker 2: I don't know why, you know.
Speaker 4: But yeah, there's seventy five foot in between each crab pot.
Speaker 4: Each pot's on snap gear, so you know, it's got
Speaker 4: like a almost like a twenty four inch leader basically
Speaker 4: with a like a metal clip, and then every seventy
Speaker 4: five foot on the main line, there's like an overhand
Speaker 4: loop tied in the main line, and so each clip
Speaker 4: gets clipped onto the loop. So when we go to
Speaker 4: pick up the crab pots, we actually picked the entire
Speaker 4: row up stack them on the boat, and then you know,
Speaker 4: like I'm putting the line on the winder and the
Speaker 4: winers hauling it into a barrel. And the barrel I
Speaker 4: have a piece of PVC pipe, you know, screwed to
Speaker 4: the side of the barrel, and so as each pot
Speaker 4: comes up, I break the snap off of the mainline
Speaker 4: and then stack all the loops on the PVC pipe
Speaker 4: in order, you know, and then all the line goes
Speaker 4: in the barrel. And then each pot as it comes up,
Speaker 4: I'll break it off the mainline. And then the shaker,
Speaker 4: who's kind of like your right hand guy, he'll open
Speaker 4: up the top door, flip the pot up, open the
Speaker 4: bait door, shake the crabs out, put a new bait
Speaker 4: in it, close the bait door, and then put it
Speaker 4: into like a hot water tank that's like kind of
Speaker 4: behind us.
Speaker 2: And that's clean.
Speaker 4: Strange deal there, man, Yeah, it's like ninety crab in though,
Speaker 4: just keeping gear clean in the summertime, you know.
Speaker 1: Because because well, I got a bunch of questions. But
Speaker 1: to tell me that real quick, explain that hot water deal.
Speaker 1: So what you're cleaning off, we're trying like crabs.
Speaker 4: Everybody thinks they're just like dumb scavengers, right, But I
Speaker 4: mean there's a way you can go out there and
Speaker 4: catch crabs. You can go out there and make a
Speaker 4: living catching crabs. And the devil's in the detail, right.
Speaker 4: So we clean every pot every time it comes over
Speaker 4: the rail, and we don't let them sit more than
Speaker 4: like four days in the summertime, you know. So what
Speaker 4: we're trying to prevent is these pots growing things like algae, barnacles.
Speaker 4: We have this like brown stuff. We call it hair.
Speaker 4: It looks just like hair, but it's technically kind of coral.
Speaker 4: These little arthropods that we get, they're like little shrimp
Speaker 4: we call them, and they it'll look like you're pots
Speaker 4: covered in like grains of brown rice. They build these
Speaker 4: little huts that they live inside of, you know, and
Speaker 4: then the stuff, the algae and things like that will
Speaker 4: catch on their little huts and start to grow.
Speaker 5: So we're just trying to prevent any of that stuff,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 4: So if you see my pots, ideally they look like
Speaker 4: they're brand new. They look like they're not dirty at all,
Speaker 4: But it's because we hit them every time. We're literally
Speaker 4: trying to kill it, like on a microscopic level.
Speaker 2: Are you trying to do it like the longevity of
Speaker 2: the pot.
Speaker 5: I'm trying toforms of the pot, performance of the pot.
Speaker 4: They don't want to trap up in a dirty pot.
Speaker 4: They don't even like a slime on it or nothing.
Speaker 2: Really they want like that.
Speaker 4: I don't know, man, I really don't because you'd think,
Speaker 4: right that like it looks a little more natural to
Speaker 4: the bottom or something because.
Speaker 2: The bottom is all the bottoms.
Speaker 4: All covered in that stuff.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 4: It's crazy. I don't know, but yeah, we're trying to
Speaker 4: keep it.
Speaker 2: They don't want to go into a dirty pot.
Speaker 4: Now, man, they don't want to. But they also don't
Speaker 4: want to go into a brand new, freshly set pot
Speaker 4: or a brand new pot because it might smell of
Speaker 4: yeah we yeah, exactly. Like we paint every pot every year,
Speaker 4: so we dip all the pots into it like a
Speaker 4: vat of paint to you know, give them them a
Speaker 4: fresh coat. But like a freshly painted pot. I've seen
Speaker 4: it where they do like it. But ninety percent of
Speaker 4: the time they don't want a freshly painted pot. So
Speaker 4: you gotta let it weather, you got, yeah exactly, But
Speaker 4: you got to fish it through too. You gotta like
Speaker 4: let it soak and then fish it through, get new
Speaker 4: fresh bait, and it usually it's like a week two
Speaker 4: weeks and they'll really start to catch, right, Man.
Speaker 2: That's so like not how you think of a crab.
Speaker 5: Man, I know that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: Man, everybody thinks of crabs is like they're these dirty
Speaker 4: scavengers or just you know, they'll eat whatever, and you.
Speaker 1: Think it will and you think that's like you're convinced
Speaker 1: that that's right. I mean, he doesn't want to go
Speaker 1: in a dirty pot.
Speaker 2: It's facts. I mean it.
Speaker 4: You know, it's a I go three insane amount of
Speaker 4: effort to keep here clean. I mean, that's the whole
Speaker 4: job in the summer, is keeping gear. And I mean
Speaker 4: anybody like.
Speaker 2: You could look at it like you're trapping crabs or
Speaker 2: you're cleaning gear. You look at it like I look
Speaker 2: at it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I look at it. I literally look at it
Speaker 4: like I'm cleaning gear and I'm hoping there's grabs in it.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Like, so tell me how like you put in a
Speaker 1: hot water bath and you agitate.
Speaker 4: It or no, no, just I mean since we're hitting
Speaker 4: them every time every day, like we're kind of keeping
Speaker 4: ahead of it, you know, so they just sit in
Speaker 4: there for I think cycle time is probably seven to
Speaker 4: twelve seconds on a pot. You know, the water one
Speaker 4: hundred and forty five degrees, so it's not like super hot.
Speaker 2: So the air is already real hot and you're hovering
Speaker 2: over that day bucks.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's yeah. I mean, and we're wearing you know,
Speaker 4: rubber slickers of rubber boots. So there's some brutal days
Speaker 4: out there, you know, when it's like stupid humid, like
Speaker 4: heat index over one hundred.
Speaker 5: This tank one hundred and forty five degree waters.
Speaker 4: Right behind me, there's a diesel burner heating it, like
Speaker 4: right next to that.
Speaker 2: That's that's what heats that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I built it out of like a heat pump from
Speaker 4: a house, like a Becket heat pump basically runs it through.
Speaker 2: Like a coil.
Speaker 1: What I'm saying like, I know what that means, but
Speaker 1: I don't know what the back of heat pump is.
Speaker 4: What heats your house if you have like an oil furnace, Yeah,
Speaker 4: I got you the same kind of deal. Yeah, My
Speaker 4: runs off car back golf cart batteries. Yeah, so yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean, it can be definitely be pretty brutal.
Speaker 5: Like the other second day of fishing and whatever everybody
Speaker 5: was or the first day, you know, everybody's like dying
Speaker 5: of the heat.
Speaker 4: And I was like, man, this ain't so bad. I
Speaker 4: was like, it does suck. I was like, yeah, well,
Speaker 4: I mean it. You know, obviously I'm not loving it,
Speaker 4: but I was like, at least I ain't wearing a
Speaker 4: trash bag on the crab boat? Yeah?
Speaker 2: How many? How many of those? How many? Well? How
Speaker 2: big is your how big is your crew?
Speaker 4: Me?
Speaker 2: And three We'll come back to that. So it's four
Speaker 2: guys in the boat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and in a day, if you're going like all
Speaker 1: out pulling pots, Yeah, in a day, how many traps
Speaker 1: are you gonna check?
Speaker 4: Five hundred and seventy five? Okay, and then to twenty
Speaker 4: three rows?
Speaker 1: What's a I'm sure it's seasonal, but just give me like,
Speaker 1: like they're working right now, right your crew's out there
Speaker 1: right now, Okay, So right now, July, a pot that
Speaker 1: has blank crabs is exciting, and a pot that has
Speaker 1: blank crabs is disappointing, Like what are the blanks?
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm so like, right now it's pretty hot. Yeah,
Speaker 4: So I mean, like, right now, if I see not
Speaker 4: all crabs are created equal, right, So I'm looking for
Speaker 4: big market sized crabs. So I would say if I
Speaker 4: had a pot with six nice, big, heavy market sized crabs,
Speaker 4: good grade, that's a good pot.
Speaker 5: You do that five hundred and seenty five times.
Speaker 4: You know, you're looking all right. Right now, there's a
Speaker 4: load of crabs around, which is a good thing, but
Speaker 4: it's also can be kind of a pain, you know,
Speaker 4: Like you would pull up a pot's got twenty crabs.
Speaker 5: I'd say the average pot has ten to fifteen crabs
Speaker 5: in it right now, got it?
Speaker 4: But I would say, like, right now, there's a load
Speaker 4: of little crabs around, a lot of light crabs, all
Speaker 4: that kind of stuff they've shed out. You know, there
Speaker 4: could be more than half of those crabs could be
Speaker 4: small or you know, we gotta squeeze every one of
Speaker 4: them to check the grate on them.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: So like we gray crabs by the density of their shell,
Speaker 4: which indicates how much meat is inside of them, and
Speaker 4: that is from when they shed out.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the denser the crab, the more meat, right generally, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: why is that? Like I see that with dungeon ass
Speaker 1: Like m hmmm. I don't know, if you're familiar with
Speaker 1: that crab.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've seen them.
Speaker 1: So when you get one, it's soft. Yeah, it's just
Speaker 1: water inside there.
Speaker 2: Why is that.
Speaker 4: It's because they ship when they shit, you know, so
Speaker 4: they'll go to slough their shell obviously have extra skeleton, right,
Speaker 4: They can't grow their skeleton, so they have to shed
Speaker 4: out of it, so they grow a larger skeleton inside
Speaker 4: their shell, and then they'll back out of the back
Speaker 4: of their shell and be a soft crab. But it
Speaker 4: takes them a little while to get that new shell hard,
Speaker 4: so they kind of fill it out full of water
Speaker 4: inside of them, and then all their energy is going
Speaker 4: to getting that shell hard as fast as they can
Speaker 4: then to be able to defend themselves, you know. So
Speaker 4: they're absorbing like calcium through the water and all that
Speaker 4: kind of stuff to get their shells harder. A lot
Speaker 4: of times we'll find light crabs on shell bottom, hard
Speaker 4: bottom because they're hanging out on the oyster beds and
Speaker 4: things like that, picking up the shells, you know, trying
Speaker 4: to get right to be hard enough to defend themselves.
Speaker 4: And then after they do that, then they'll start to
Speaker 4: fill their their insides out, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: It's like all their energy is going.
Speaker 2: To then they'll starting impacting on an actual meat. Right.
Speaker 4: But you'll notice like female blue crabs, I don't know
Speaker 4: if it is the same with dungeness, but female blue
Speaker 4: crabs will get their shells harder, like twice as fast
Speaker 4: as a male. Because the only time a female crab
Speaker 4: is gonna shed. A female blue crab is gonna shed
Speaker 4: or is uh yeah, it's gonna shed is when they
Speaker 4: shed from an immature female to a mature female. And
Speaker 4: then that's the only one time they're gonna mate in
Speaker 4: their whole life is when they are a mature female
Speaker 4: soft crab. They're gonna do it one time, but then
Speaker 4: after that they're like their shells.
Speaker 2: No, that's when they mate. That's the one time they
Speaker 2: make one.
Speaker 4: Time they mate. So when they're an immature female, we
Speaker 4: called them a sally, right, and so it'll be a
Speaker 4: little crab like you know, maybe that big, and they
Speaker 4: have a pyramid shaped apron, and you can tell that
Speaker 4: that immature female is gonna shed into a mature female
Speaker 4: because their apron will get like a purple pink hue.
Speaker 4: So that's when the that's basically when they're in heat. Right,
Speaker 4: So the big dominant male crabs will go and we
Speaker 4: call them doublers. They'll double up on these little sallies
Speaker 4: and carry them around on their belly for like a
Speaker 4: couple of weeks and defend them.
Speaker 5: And then all the big crabs are fighting with each other, and.
Speaker 1: That crab grabs onto that girl crab toats her around
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks fighting off other guys, yep, and
Speaker 1: she just she kind of goes along with it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, she's just happy to be involved.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, defend man. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Is that common just across crabness or is that like
Speaker 1: a blue crab deal.
Speaker 4: I don't I'll be honest, I'm not real familiar with
Speaker 4: anything blue crab. Yeah, it's pretty dialed on the blue crabs.
Speaker 4: But besides that, I'm not.
Speaker 2: Really toats her around yep. Yeah, he'll tote her around.
Speaker 4: Basically like I said, with them, Yeah, yep, but don't
Speaker 4: like the crab. I don't know how it works, but
Speaker 4: I'm sure it's similar with animals, like they're I think
Speaker 4: that Sally is giving off something that you know, indicates
Speaker 4: that she's in heat, right, Like we look at her
Speaker 4: fins to tell a peeler crab like that. We'll look
Speaker 4: at their inside second swim fin and they'll have a
Speaker 4: white line at first we called a white sign, will
Speaker 4: go to orange.
Speaker 2: And then red. You know.
Speaker 4: Once they're red, we say they're rank so, which means
Speaker 4: they're gonna shed the next day or two. Okay, that's
Speaker 4: how we tell a peeler on the boat which will
Speaker 4: shed the salt crab.
Speaker 2: The moment is a peeler good or bad for you?
Speaker 5: A peeler's good for me, So you're allowed to keep.
Speaker 1: You're allowed to keep a female Yeah that hasn't bred yet, yeah, okay, yeah.
Speaker 2: Just generally all year long.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the size changes. It starts at three inches across
Speaker 4: the top of the carapace, and then at July sixteenth,
Speaker 4: he goes to three and a quarter inches, I believe,
Speaker 4: for three and a half inches across for the for
Speaker 4: the sally you know, for I mean for a peeler. Yeah,
Speaker 4: normal blue crab starts at five inches, goes to five
Speaker 4: and a quarter for keep.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that crabs coming up getting bigger, bigger, bigger,
Speaker 1: and then she gets where she's gonna molt or shed,
Speaker 1: and then she's gonna get the guys gonna carry around
Speaker 1: breeder and then she's gonna turn into like then she's
Speaker 1: gonna breed.
Speaker 2: Produce eggs. Yeah, and then she's gonna live for how
Speaker 2: long after that?
Speaker 1: I I don't really know, but she just is hanging
Speaker 1: out and is never gonna have babies again.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, she'll so she'll carry you know, she'll carry
Speaker 4: it around with her the whole time after they've bred,
Speaker 4: you know, for the rest of her life.
Speaker 2: Oh, she like has like delayed implantations. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, so they that's blow.
Speaker 2: In my mind.
Speaker 4: Okay, Yeah, it's a common misconception that she fertilized one time. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and then she will she's juice.
Speaker 2: Is that juice is her for yeah? Yeah, the rest
Speaker 2: of her life?
Speaker 4: Yep, yep, And so she'll sponge up. I've always heard
Speaker 4: six to eight times, you know, but who knows.
Speaker 2: I don't really know how old is the old crab?
Speaker 4: I mean I don't. I mean, I don't really know
Speaker 4: for sure, but I would I think they say in
Speaker 4: old crabs like four years old, you know. But the
Speaker 4: thing that usually kills a crab besides getting caught is
Speaker 4: they go to shed and they can't ship. They don't
Speaker 4: have the energy.
Speaker 5: So like male crabs just keep getting bigger, bigger, bigger.
Speaker 4: But a female crab, since they only shed from an
Speaker 4: immature to a mature female one time. Once she's a
Speaker 4: mature female, she'll never shed again. Okay, so she'll never grow.
Speaker 4: So if she's that big, is a mature female, she'll
Speaker 4: stay that big.
Speaker 2: If she's that she'll stay that big. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And then they'll sponge up, so they get like
Speaker 4: I'm sure you've seen them before, like when.
Speaker 2: You pull the tail thing back and there's like eggs
Speaker 2: and air. What do you mean.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, so like on a blue crab, her apron
Speaker 4: right on the bottom, she'll get this big sponge crabs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I keep like, I keep picturing dungeies. That's just
Speaker 1: kind of the crab by massive. Yeah, I keep picturing dungees.
Speaker 1: But I know what you're talking about.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So they'll get like a big egg sponge. Say
Speaker 4: it's you know, two to eight million eggs per sponge.
Speaker 4: When they're really bright orange they're new, she'll carry them
Speaker 4: around for like two weeks. As time goes on, they'll
Speaker 4: get darker in color, and by the time they drop off,
Speaker 4: their like real dark like brown, almost black. They'll drop
Speaker 4: off as larvae and then they kind of float around
Speaker 4: to the tide. And then those larvae are going to
Speaker 4: like change kind of like their form, like like twenty
Speaker 4: there's almost like twenty different stages before they even start
Speaker 4: to look like a blue crab, right, And then once
Speaker 4: they start to look like a blue crab, then they're
Speaker 4: shedding once a week, you know, once every two weeks whatever,
Speaker 4: you know, just until they get to a certain size,
Speaker 4: like maybe half the size of your thumb something like that.
Speaker 4: And then you know they're shedding less and less frequently
Speaker 4: as they get older, but they're trying to like it's
Speaker 4: like it's a it's a sprint to get as big
Speaker 4: as you can so you don't get eaten, right, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean. And then once they get to
Speaker 4: a certain size, then they're a little safer and they're
Speaker 4: only gonna shed a few times a year.
Speaker 1: So when you're what's the most valuable one you can catch?
Speaker 1: And I got another question for you, What the hell's this? Like,
Speaker 1: I know what a soft shell is. He just explained it.
Speaker 1: But that's good for you or bad for you. That's
Speaker 1: gotta be good for you, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So soft shells are good for us. You know,
Speaker 4: I can sell them for a bunch of money individually.
Speaker 4: They're like a delicacy, you know where we're at. But
Speaker 4: the best soft shell crabs I get are crabs that
Speaker 4: I catch as a peeler and then I put into
Speaker 4: tanks and then I monitor the tanks and then pull
Speaker 4: them out as a as like a perfect soft crab
Speaker 4: because they're.
Speaker 2: A little bit like a semi aquaculture deal.
Speaker 4: Yeah something like that.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: So I got like tanks and all that where I
Speaker 4: I bring them in and put them in the tank
Speaker 4: and then you know, check on them like every couple
Speaker 4: of hours, because.
Speaker 2: Once every couple of hours.
Speaker 4: Yeah, man, like once a crab sheds, uh, you know,
Speaker 4: only have like two hours to get it before it's
Speaker 4: you know, too hard to be a soft crab, too
Speaker 4: soft to be a hard crab.
Speaker 2: It's ours.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, Oh yeah, dude. Like when we get these
Speaker 4: peeler runs, we're up all night, you know, we're up
Speaker 4: checking tanks.
Speaker 2: I got like.
Speaker 4: Cameras in my shedding tanks and all so I can
Speaker 4: see when they're shedding and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: Wait, yeah, dude, I mean it's they're not like synchronized though,
Speaker 1: is there a way to synchronize them.
Speaker 4: They're not necessarily synchronized, but I've noticed that there is
Speaker 4: definitely cycles where they will all shed at one time.
Speaker 2: It's kind of weird, and I don't know exactly what
Speaker 2: it is.
Speaker 4: You know, a lot of people claim moon phase, a
Speaker 4: lot of people claim tied all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 4: But you know, they're in an isolated tank. You know,
Speaker 4: it's not like I'm keeping them in a live box.
Speaker 4: They're in an isolated tank, and they're still somehow kind
Speaker 4: of all in the same cycle and a lot in
Speaker 4: a lot of ways. It's kind of weird, Like I
Speaker 4: don't even know what they can man for like, yeah,
Speaker 4: every two hours?
Speaker 2: Are you serious? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Man?
Speaker 2: How many those how many of those things? Unless let's
Speaker 2: just I don't want to ask you question, like like
Speaker 2: how much is in bank account?
Speaker 1: But how many those things you can how many putting
Speaker 1: in a tank at a time.
Speaker 4: I mean I just built new tanks this year, but
Speaker 4: I mean I can put a couple of hundred in
Speaker 4: a tank.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 4: So I usually have different tanks and as they're in
Speaker 4: different stages of shedding, I will move them into different
Speaker 4: tanks because they will kill each other, you know. So
Speaker 4: if you have one that's too remember house at a
Speaker 4: white sign earlier. It's got that white line, so you
Speaker 4: know that crab still got a couple of days until
Speaker 4: it sheds. But especially the immature females are the meanest.
Speaker 4: Like if you have them in a tank as a
Speaker 4: white sign, she's too early with a bunch of males
Speaker 4: that are going to shed, she'll just go around and
Speaker 4: kill them all, you know, eat thember kill them. They
Speaker 4: just kill them. I don't, they don't. They don't eat them.
Speaker 4: They just kill them. They don't really eat when they're
Speaker 4: going to shed. Like we know people always like, what
Speaker 4: do you feed them in the tanks. We don't feed
Speaker 4: them anything. They well, I've put different stuff in there
Speaker 4: just to see if they'll eat it, and they never do.
Speaker 4: The only thing they'll kill and eat is each other sometimes.
Speaker 1: So if you when you go in and get a
Speaker 1: when you go into when you're out in that neck
Speaker 1: of the world and you go into and you see
Speaker 1: in a restaurant soft shell crab, there's a better chance
Speaker 1: that some dude halfs that thing and a monitored that
Speaker 1: thing in a tank, yeah, and plucked it at just
Speaker 1: the right moment then there is that you caught it
Speaker 1: in a pot.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean we do catch them in the pots, but.
Speaker 4: You know, a lot of times they're pretty beat up,
Speaker 4: you know, and they don't make it too you know,
Speaker 4: be in a live soft crab or something like that.
Speaker 4: A lot of times those ones will go to fit
Speaker 4: either fish bait or be cleaned and frozen, you know,
Speaker 4: sold as a frozen soft crab.
Speaker 5: God because you know, you pull up a pot and
Speaker 5: you got one soft.
Speaker 4: We try to be really careful with them, you know,
Speaker 4: like if I pull a pot, you know, I can
Speaker 4: usually tell which ones, you know, if there's a soft
Speaker 4: crab and there as soon as it breaks the surface,
Speaker 4: and if there is.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm going to open up the pot.
Speaker 4: I'm going to try to you know, jimmy the other
Speaker 4: crabs around and reach up in there and try to
Speaker 4: get her out of there, you know, without her getting
Speaker 4: tore up, because that pot is the surface and it's
Speaker 4: game on. All them crabs are just locked onto each
Speaker 4: other and they're.
Speaker 2: You know, oh yeah, so like they don't know what's
Speaker 2: going on.
Speaker 4: They're all, yeah, they just get stressed and they're all
Speaker 4: fighting each other. So but like they see a soft
Speaker 4: crab in there, and they're just you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: it's like, oh no, they just killed ten bucks. It's
Speaker 4: a bummer.
Speaker 1: So tell me, like, because this is a lot of
Speaker 1: this is new to me, walk through.
Speaker 2: The different crabs.
Speaker 1: You Okay, so there's there's just there's gotta be somewhere
Speaker 1: in here.
Speaker 2: We'll start with this. There's like the big old male,
Speaker 2: hard ass shell that's like a crab.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you mean like they're kind of the different grades. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: all right, So on my boat, we're calling crabs like
Speaker 4: shorting them. We call it calling into we got extra
Speaker 4: larch males, right, and then we have.
Speaker 1: Them and that'd be like what like if you go
Speaker 1: to if you're steaming crabs, dumping them out on the table,
Speaker 1: and everybody's picking crabs and eating them, that's who they're eating.
Speaker 4: Well, if you got you know, if you just spent
Speaker 4: a bunch of money, if you spent one hundred and
Speaker 4: fiftywo hundred hours, it.
Speaker 2: Does Okay, Yeah, that's the high grade.
Speaker 4: That's the highest grade crab.
Speaker 5: It's like, uh, you know the xls and the.
Speaker 2: Jumbos, how big are they point to point those you know.
Speaker 4: I'll call mine at like six and three quarter inches big.
Speaker 4: That's big, you know.
Speaker 1: And and that's an expensive high dollar.
Speaker 4: But you know, we don't we're not catching much of those.
Speaker 4: So like, for instance, we might catch you know, like
Speaker 4: the other day we have thirty bushel of crabs. Two
Speaker 4: bushel of those were exls.
Speaker 2: Okay, so that's one grade.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's like top tier.
Speaker 2: That's what I'm looking for.
Speaker 4: You know. I try to take as good a care
Speaker 4: of them as I possibly do.
Speaker 2: It makes you most happy, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: I love seeing a big, nice, big flat crab come
Speaker 4: with them up in the pot, and then we have
Speaker 4: our number ones.
Speaker 2: Monkey back up one see. Yeah, what's that big ass
Speaker 2: crab worth?
Speaker 4: I sew them at my place live a hundred bucks
Speaker 4: a dozen oka, and I could get more. I mean
Speaker 4: in the times of the year when we have like
Speaker 4: the really big giant crabs, like you just see them,
Speaker 4: You're like, holy smokes, that's a giant.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: I get one hundred fifty bucks a dozen, but we
Speaker 4: might get two dozen a day.
Speaker 1: People are buying those to throw down like on a
Speaker 1: nice yeah party dinner kind of thing like that.
Speaker 4: At you know, people are like one hundred and.
Speaker 5: Fifty bucks A doesnen that's insane.
Speaker 4: You know what.
Speaker 5: I've never been stuck with one single time one hundred.
Speaker 4: And fifty dollars dozen crabs, man like the first to go.
Speaker 2: I mean, people line up to go, try to pay
Speaker 2: one hundred fifty bucks. But they comment on it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, oh yeah, everybody's got something to say about it.
Speaker 4: And it's kind of funny because like there's some people
Speaker 4: that are just like in a position to do that,
Speaker 4: and there's other people that like it's almost like Maryland Brad.
Speaker 2: It's almost like bragging, right, people.
Speaker 4: Like I paid one hundred and fifty bucks. You know
Speaker 4: these I paid one hundred fifty bucks. It does for
Speaker 4: these ones, you know what I mean, I knew a
Speaker 4: guy to get.
Speaker 2: Crabs like, so it's expensive, but they sell.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, like you can't go into a restaurant
Speaker 4: and get crabs that are that great, even if you're
Speaker 4: paying more.
Speaker 2: Like those are the crabs.
Speaker 4: We call them the the Noah Guy crabs, you know,
Speaker 4: because really you got to know a guy to get
Speaker 4: crabs like that, you know what I mean. Okay, So
Speaker 4: then we have our Number ones, which is like the
Speaker 4: primary that's the biomass I want to target is your
Speaker 4: number ones and that is your we call them at
Speaker 4: five and three quarters to six and three quarters.
Speaker 5: But that's your like market sized crab.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 4: That's what I'm shooting for is to get the most
Speaker 4: amount of those the bread and butter. That's the bread
Speaker 4: and butter crab. That's I got good margins on all
Speaker 4: those crabs. They live pretty good and they fill up baskets,
Speaker 4: you know. There, that's the large you know, and that's
Speaker 4: the crabs that you're probably going to see at a
Speaker 4: crab feast or something if it's just your buddies, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and then the next tier would bember and those are
Speaker 4: going for how much it does? I think right now
Speaker 4: I'm at seventy dollars a dozen on them, and like
Speaker 4: four hundred bucks a bushel, which is six dozen.
Speaker 2: Crabs hundred bucks of bushel.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it costs a lot to catch the well.
Speaker 2: No, I'm not. I'm not hacking on the market.
Speaker 1: Just one time we went out we had I don't
Speaker 1: know how many got we had enough guys in the
Speaker 1: boat that we.
Speaker 2: Went out with one of them onlines.
Speaker 5: Is that what you're when you were filmed sick in
Speaker 5: your hunt?
Speaker 2: I think I said we had like a bushel. Yeah
Speaker 2: it was cool. Yeah, yeah, it was no joke. I mean,
Speaker 2: but pull up a bushel. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So that's four hundred bucks for the crabs. Yeah, in
Speaker 1: today's price as well.
Speaker 4: Yeah for yeah, for me, I mean a lot of
Speaker 4: places are a lot more and some places are cheaper.
Speaker 2: Yeah, got it.
Speaker 4: I never claim to have the cheapest crabs.
Speaker 1: And those go to Are you you have restaurant clients?
Speaker 4: No, not anymore. I I used to.
Speaker 2: That's all.
Speaker 4: I sell all my stuff direct to consumer now, but
Speaker 4: that's very uncommon, I know.
Speaker 1: But within that isn't that direct consumer? There's no like,
Speaker 1: there's no consumer for you. That just happens to like,
Speaker 1: use some crab in a restaurant. It's like people taking
Speaker 1: it home to eat it.
Speaker 2: You know, they can do whatever they want with them.
Speaker 4: But they're priced out of being middlemanned. And that's almost
Speaker 4: a little bit of that's on purpose, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean. So it's at a price point where you're
Speaker 4: not going to have somebody. If somebody were to be
Speaker 4: buying those crabs for a restaurant, there would be no margin. Differently, Yeah,
Speaker 4: you know, I've had people that have restaurants or something
Speaker 4: like that, and they'll come and pay whatever because they
Speaker 4: you know, they want to be like, oh yeah, we
Speaker 4: got crabs from the crab guy, you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: on YouTube or whatever.
Speaker 1: Just yeah, so the way like just the you've developed
Speaker 1: a certain market, you serve a certain clientele, or you're
Speaker 1: just out of the restaurant business and you're selling.
Speaker 2: Two people serving food to their friends and families.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yep, yep. And you know I used to
Speaker 4: sell to restaurants and things like that, but once you
Speaker 4: go to selling your own crabs, you almost get blacklisted
Speaker 4: in a way, you know what I mean. So you know,
Speaker 4: I had been selling to restaurants and purveyors for like
Speaker 4: seven years, you know, and I'd built good reputation. You
Speaker 4: have a lot of contact with them exactly. So you
Speaker 4: go to sell your own and they don't want to
Speaker 4: buy from you because, yeah, your competition, but also they're
Speaker 4: always going to assume that you're going to be skimming
Speaker 4: the better grade off. That's really the big thing, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean, which like I truthfully never did
Speaker 4: because I was, like, you know, I was in a
Speaker 4: position when I started where like there was no market
Speaker 4: for me, so I had to like be you know,
Speaker 4: I had no family in market. I had you know,
Speaker 4: I had nothing, so I had to like have a
Speaker 4: little bit of an edge on the other guys. So
Speaker 4: like I always I never did that, and I always
Speaker 4: sold like you know, I was like a tryhard I
Speaker 4: was trying to sell like a better product than the
Speaker 4: other guys, which I know now like kind.
Speaker 2: Of screws up the market status quo, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 4: But also at the times, like I did what I
Speaker 4: had to do to get a foot in. But yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean I sell everything direct to consumer now, which
Speaker 4: is I say, it's like three times the money for
Speaker 4: five times the work, you know, I mean, cause you're
Speaker 4: it used to be I'd catch crabs and you drop
Speaker 4: them off to the done. Yeah, yeah, you know, I'd
Speaker 4: be driving around the truck for two three hours, you know,
Speaker 4: after work.
Speaker 5: But it's like I didn't have to worry about it.
Speaker 4: I tacked up a you know, a ticket, I picked
Speaker 4: up a check on Monday, you know, and we we're
Speaker 4: just throwing crabs in the baskets.
Speaker 2: The more they die, the more they buy, right, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean.
Speaker 4: But now I'm like, oh my gosh, like we got
Speaker 4: you know, like every crab goes in the basket, up right.
Speaker 2: I mean we've always tried to do that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, ye, we've always tried to you know, take good
Speaker 4: care of the product obviously, but you know, it's just
Speaker 4: kind of the joke. It's like now I'm like, now
Speaker 4: I catch them on a Monday or Tuesday, and I'm like,
Speaker 4: all right, now, I got to keep this thing alive
Speaker 4: till Saturday. We're only open two days you're at the
Speaker 4: retail spot.
Speaker 1: So okay, So we got the XLS is that what
Speaker 1: you call the YEP excels?
Speaker 2: And you got the bread and Butter crab.
Speaker 4: Number one, my favorite crab, and then we got number twos,
Speaker 4: which are going to be your smaller crab.
Speaker 1: And this doesn't matter like these are at this point.
Speaker 1: These are all males, Yes, all males.
Speaker 4: And that's gonna be like, well before the sixteenth five
Speaker 4: inch crab to five and three quarter inch crab.
Speaker 2: You just know it when you're looking at it, you're
Speaker 2: not putting.
Speaker 4: The most part, for the most part. I mean we
Speaker 4: do have sticks. Obviously, we're putting them to the stick
Speaker 4: and all when we got to, but you know, for
Speaker 4: the most part, I mean I've seen enough crabs, I
Speaker 4: can pretty much just call them by eye. So we
Speaker 4: got number two's. Those are gonna be our smaller crabs.
Speaker 4: But so remember number two's number ones in excels. These
Speaker 4: are all crabs that are better grade. They're all hard, okay,
Speaker 4: So like we squeeze them, shells are hard. Crabs will
Speaker 4: meat and then we'll have light crabs. We call them
Speaker 4: trash crabs in the industry. Another grade, which is what
Speaker 4: we call a straight call, which means, if it's legal,
Speaker 4: it goes in the same basket. All the same sizes
Speaker 4: get mixed right on a straight call. But it's going
Speaker 4: to be we call them lights when we sell them.
Speaker 4: In the industry, we call them trash crabs. So it'll
Speaker 4: be a straight call trash crab, which is thesed. We
Speaker 4: need a chart.
Speaker 2: It's because it's a it's a size issue.
Speaker 5: Is something different, it's something different.
Speaker 4: So it's when you squeeze.
Speaker 2: Them, can be a trash crab.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's when we squeeze him, right, And so they've
Speaker 4: we can and we can tell that they've shed, but
Speaker 4: they haven't yet filled their new shell out.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But so even if he was.
Speaker 4: If he's eight inches, he's going in the light basket.
Speaker 4: If he's five and a quarter, he's going in the
Speaker 4: same basket.
Speaker 2: I got you. That's then they're all straight same value.
Speaker 2: It's just a per pound or whatever.
Speaker 4: Dollar a crab.
Speaker 2: Baby, Oh that's how that goes.
Speaker 4: Ye yeah, yeah, so we don't Okay, so I don't
Speaker 4: keep a lot of lights. Usually you pitch.
Speaker 5: Him back, yeah, which is very uncommon.
Speaker 4: But also it's because I don't have I'm my own
Speaker 4: market for lights, you know what I mean. And I
Speaker 4: try to you know, I try to keep the value
Speaker 4: of the product up. And I have some customers that
Speaker 4: prefer light crabs. Right, They're easy to pick, they're super cheap.
Speaker 2: You're great for.
Speaker 4: Kids and things like that. But my kind of outlook
Speaker 4: on it is like, you can only kill a crab
Speaker 4: one time, right, sure, and I would much rather throw
Speaker 4: that crab back and give him a chance to kill
Speaker 4: him when he's worth.
Speaker 2: Let them be all, yeah.
Speaker 4: Ten dollars crab instead of a dollar crab.
Speaker 1: But if I came to you begging for a basket lights,
Speaker 1: you'd oblige me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean, we they don't live real good
Speaker 4: to walk in either, so we'll usually keep like two
Speaker 4: bushel on a Friday, just because I have some regulars
Speaker 4: that like they prefer those crafts.
Speaker 1: So no one you're gonna sell over the weekend. On
Speaker 1: a Friday, you'd keep something.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'd keep a couple, but I you know, I'm
Speaker 4: not keeping I ain't gonna keep ten bushel of them
Speaker 4: on a Monday. You're just gonna kill him for nothing.
Speaker 4: You know, there's no sense in killing him for no reason.
Speaker 4: And even like taking them to a picking house or
Speaker 4: something like that. I mean, what are you gonna unload
Speaker 4: him for, you know nothing, twenty dollars fifteen twenty dollars
Speaker 4: for a bushel of crabs. I mean, it seemed to
Speaker 4: me it's a little counterintuitive when you try to, you know,
Speaker 4: catch themselves.
Speaker 2: If you let two of them, if you let that,
Speaker 2: whole bush will go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and two of them, two or three of them
Speaker 1: come back to you as ones seles or whatever.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was worth it.
Speaker 2: It was your money, right, Okay. So that's another grade.
Speaker 4: And then we got females, and then we sort females
Speaker 4: just into mediums and largest. We don't get a ton
Speaker 4: of them, little tiny mature females. You can only keep
Speaker 4: a female if it's a mature female, and there's no
Speaker 4: size limit across the carapace, you know, no point to
Speaker 4: point limit size on a female crab. It's just if
Speaker 4: it's a mature female crab, you can take it.
Speaker 2: So not everybody, but overboard.
Speaker 1: There's the mesh on the pot such that it's it's
Speaker 1: already sorting itself.
Speaker 4: So in a lot of ways, yes, So crabs, male
Speaker 4: crabs under five inches are going overboard most of the time.
Speaker 4: Lights are going overboard. Immature females that are not peelers
Speaker 4: are going overboard, although that's kind of uncommon any light females.
Speaker 4: We don't keep any light females because remember how I
Speaker 4: said the females, their shells get harder twice as fast,
Speaker 4: but they're twice as empty inside, you know. But yes,
Speaker 4: in pots, I have different mesh size wire yeah. Uh.
Speaker 4: And that does a lot of the calling forests.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And then we also have call rings, which are plastic
Speaker 4: rings in the sides of the pots.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And so I have different size call rings that I
Speaker 4: open up at different times of the year, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean when, because it like right now there
Speaker 4: we have that mail shed early this year, and so
Speaker 4: there's just a load of crabs. But there's a load
Speaker 4: of these cookie cutter like four and three quarter and
Speaker 4: five to five and a half inch little mails and
Speaker 4: so I have you know that's a legal crab, right,
Speaker 4: you know, five and a half inch crab, a legal crab.
Speaker 4: But I don't want to dump thirty of those in
Speaker 4: the box, and they have to go through thirty of
Speaker 4: them each pot. You know, it's just it's going to
Speaker 4: slow already down. You're getting bad up, so you use
Speaker 4: the right rings. Yet I put bigger rings in there
Speaker 4: so i'll you know, I can let a legal crab out,
Speaker 4: but I'm not I'm not really interested in catching two.
Speaker 4: So I'd rather catch a pot with three ones than
Speaker 4: a pot with ten twos. You know, any day, it's
Speaker 4: less work to call through them. You know, they're not
Speaker 4: getting pinched up. Like little crabs will kill big crabs
Speaker 4: in the pot. And once little crabs go in, big
Speaker 4: crabs don't want to go in there, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean.
Speaker 5: Like big crabs trap big crabs. Little trap little.
Speaker 4: Crabs trap little crabs, and females kill everything. They they'll
Speaker 4: they don't trap any males, yeah, mature females. They usually
Speaker 4: run together in a pack, so you'll pull pot's got thirty.
Speaker 2: Of them, which they killing males.
Speaker 4: Male goes in there, he's dead, dude, They're they're gonna
Speaker 4: tear him up.
Speaker 2: Gole man. You'd like to ask him why they're doing it.
Speaker 2: Competition or something.
Speaker 4: I don't know, man, they're just vicious. They're they're unassuming,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. I think they lure them
Speaker 4: in there and then kill them. The kind of been dead,
Speaker 4: I guess there or something. I don't know, daddy issues,
Speaker 4: I guess.
Speaker 2: So these dudes, like does it work for you?
Speaker 1: Do you got the same guys all the time or
Speaker 1: is it just like a are they like freelance camera guys?
Speaker 2: You just go grab one or grab one and.
Speaker 4: A lot of ways they're like freelance camera guys. A
Speaker 4: lot of times they're like freelance camera guys. But like
Speaker 4: right now, I'm very fortunate to have a good crew,
Speaker 4: which you know, some of these guys have been with
Speaker 4: me for a while, multiple years. That's pretty uncommon in
Speaker 4: a lot of ways. You know, I've done a lot
Speaker 4: of years where you were just trying to get anybody
Speaker 4: that'll show just warm bodies, you know, and it's it's
Speaker 4: it's honest as it's getting a lot of guys out
Speaker 4: of the industry. Is that the extreme lack of help
Speaker 4: the rising cost of operation. But you know, it's just
Speaker 4: it's a pain to try to train a new guy.
Speaker 2: You know, you got your way, you like it, and
Speaker 2: they did it on another boat.
Speaker 4: That's yeah, but there's only one way to do it's
Speaker 4: the way, you know what I mean, on my boat
Speaker 4: at least. So I've put a lot of time into
Speaker 4: trying to dial the system, you know, and make basically
Speaker 4: the system a like almost like an assembly line, right
Speaker 4: with interchangeable parts is, you know, and people are the parts.
Speaker 4: So I try to make every job on the boat,
Speaker 4: every step something that basically a monkey could do if
Speaker 4: he'd be you know what I mean, skilled guy.
Speaker 1: And then all the guys learn the different roles and
Speaker 1: so if you jump into blank roll or whatever, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: So they kind of work their way up the totem pole.
Speaker 4: They're going to start as usually a stacker, so they're
Speaker 4: going to be pulling the pots out of that hot
Speaker 4: water tank, stacking them three high, pushing them to the
Speaker 4: back of the boat.
Speaker 5: It's kind of the low man on the totem pole job.
Speaker 4: And then I would say, depending on the boat in
Speaker 4: the area, your second guy is either going to be
Speaker 4: your call man, you know, the guy that's sorting crabs,
Speaker 4: or your shaker. For me, like in the upper Bay,
Speaker 4: it's always been a shaker, but like you go to
Speaker 4: other areas and they regard their second mate or their
Speaker 4: first mate as their caller, you know, because they're in
Speaker 4: charge of their right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Like then yeah, I don't know, based on based on
Speaker 1: me knowing nothing, I would think that that would be
Speaker 1: like the right that'd be the important job.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it is, you you know, And when I sold
Speaker 4: the market, it was a more important to me. It
Speaker 4: was more important to have a more skilled guy on.
Speaker 2: There because you were giving him a second look.
Speaker 4: Right, But now you know I have I can afford
Speaker 4: a little bit of buffer in that area because you know,
Speaker 4: we're the only ones touching the crabs and they're going
Speaker 4: to call them on the boat, and then my guys
Speaker 4: at the crabs stand are also gonna as well, exactly,
Speaker 4: And so that'll afford me some days. If I got
Speaker 4: a mix mixed mass crew or you know, something like that,
Speaker 4: I know, well maybe I could pull you know, if
Speaker 4: we got to make up some time. Maybe I could
Speaker 4: pull my guy off the call box, put him on
Speaker 4: the rail to shake, you know, put a guy that
Speaker 4: maybe doesn't know quite as much on there to just
Speaker 4: to get through them. And then you know, I'll just
Speaker 4: let the guys of the stand no, you know, I'll
Speaker 4: tag them and say, you know, just pay attention when
Speaker 4: you go through these particular attention to make sure grades
Speaker 4: right on him.
Speaker 2: What's the average age of a crew guy in the
Speaker 2: in the industry, In the industry, I don't know, man.
Speaker 4: I mean, you'll have you got a lot of high
Speaker 4: school kids, college age kids. That's what I have mostly.
Speaker 4: But then also there's some straight lifers we call them,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, guys that are you know,
Speaker 4: they look like they're one hundred, but they're probably like
Speaker 4: thirty five. Well maybe you someday, yeah, probaly, I mean,
Speaker 4: I'm definitely a lifer. But I mean, you know, for
Speaker 4: the crew, it tends to attract not all the time,
Speaker 4: but you know, it is common that it attracts a
Speaker 4: certain crowd of folks. Yeah, and maybe don't already have
Speaker 4: a job, you know, I mean, maybe they got more
Speaker 4: toes and teeth a lot of times they may have
Speaker 4: a habit that you know, requires them to make quick
Speaker 4: money with physical labor, you know what I mean. It
Speaker 4: doesn't require bringing your own equipment except yourself.
Speaker 1: You know, because you because you allow so much visibility
Speaker 1: through through video and other stuff, you lost so much
Speaker 1: visibility into your how you get your.
Speaker 2: Product and sell your product.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do your crew guys come to you.
Speaker 4: Because they want a job? Yeah, they do. And it's
Speaker 4: kind of funny because like I used to have endless
Speaker 4: problems with getting crew. Now I have endless amounts of
Speaker 4: people that want to help. But as the stuff online
Speaker 4: has grown, I keep the circle a lot tighter. You
Speaker 4: ain't getting a job on the boat because mostly just
Speaker 4: some guy that wants to say he did it, or
Speaker 4: some guy that wants to you know, I'll almost paranoid,
Speaker 4: like you know, they're they're gonna want to try to
Speaker 4: sue you or something. You know, Like, yeah, I'm very guarded.
Speaker 4: So like, if you want a job on the boat,
Speaker 4: I either have to be real desperate, or you gotta
Speaker 4: know somebody that's already helping me or something like that.
Speaker 4: I do a fair amount of vetting, you know, just
Speaker 4: because you know that or at some kid that just
Speaker 4: wants to put it all over snapchat story that.
Speaker 2: He and he's not gonna be any good anyway.
Speaker 4: So I try to find seek out crew members that
Speaker 4: are like not interested in what, you know, not not
Speaker 4: interested in the in video and whatever else.
Speaker 2: They're not trying to be like a crab exactly.
Speaker 4: They're there for the income, not the outcome, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, well, let's talk about the infrastructure minute. So
Speaker 1: you said you got to you got a trout line
Speaker 1: boat that.
Speaker 2: You keep for crew guys to use or whatever. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you got your main you got you got one main boat.
Speaker 4: Yeah we're building another one right now, but yes, one
Speaker 4: main one that we're running all.
Speaker 2: Them tanks, retail location.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know, fifteen hundred crab pots sitting in
Speaker 4: my front yard.
Speaker 2: You're not here.
Speaker 1: So that's what I'm saying, Like it's got to be
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know I'm getting. I mean, like
Speaker 1: we're for capital investment.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it ain't worth it in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2: You got for capital investment?
Speaker 1: Is it more or less than buying like a sweet
Speaker 1: house in your town?
Speaker 2: I mean it would be.
Speaker 4: Probably not everybody's rigs created equal, But I mean we
Speaker 4: could just go through some kind of numbers on on,
Speaker 4: you know, in terms of equipment. So you know, I
Speaker 4: got a commercial nine hundred pot license.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you gotta buy that thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I bought mine a lot cheaper because it was
Speaker 4: a long time ago. But I mean now, I would
Speaker 4: say that license is probably worth thirty thousand dollars. And
Speaker 4: then you got to pay two thousand bucks a year
Speaker 4: to hold it to the state. So we got like
Speaker 4: thirty grand there. And then you know, if you were
Speaker 4: like my boat, it's not worth a load of money.
Speaker 4: The new boat I'm building is you know, the new
Speaker 4: boat that I'm building that I probably will never hopefully
Speaker 4: have to build another one. By the time it's all
Speaker 4: said and done, it'll be like quarter million bucks.
Speaker 5: Crab pots fifty two dollars apiece finished out.
Speaker 4: So I got fifteen hundred of those. I have another
Speaker 4: commercial license, a three hundred pot license that I hold,
Speaker 4: so that one's probably worth ten thousand bucks fifteen dollars.
Speaker 2: You hold it now.
Speaker 4: We will run them both on the boat sometimes when
Speaker 4: there's limits, because you can keep two limits with two licensees.
Speaker 4: You know, we got a retail location that I own,
Speaker 4: you know, commercial property that I owned with a little
Speaker 4: stand on it. We got refrigerator trailers, we got trucks,
Speaker 4: you know, boats, there's a lot of there's a lot
Speaker 4: of infrastructure.
Speaker 2: But it's stuff you just accumulated though.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's mostly stuff that I built out of whatever
Speaker 4: was around, you know, because the thing is with crab
Speaker 4: and it's like the margins ain't there too to go
Speaker 4: and you know, buy all the stuff and just go.
Speaker 5: You'd like it would take you forever to the money backs.
Speaker 1: So you get something, you make a little money used
Speaker 1: to buy parts, yeah, come assembled together, and then all
Speaker 1: these years later, what like twelve years later or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you sit back, you're like.
Speaker 4: Damn, yeah, you got the whole deal. But it's like
Speaker 4: it's because you know it one day and to start
Speaker 4: to I mean that wouldn't never make any sense, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: So it's like and see, and that's another reasons generational.
Speaker 4: A lot of times it's because these guys, you know,
Speaker 4: the sun gets into it and he doesn't have to
Speaker 4: go buy a one hundred thousand dollars boat and he
Speaker 4: doesn't have to buy a license, you know, yeah, or
Speaker 4: if he does, you know, know, they have a lot
Speaker 4: of that back end infrastructure. They have markets already in line.
Speaker 4: You know, some guys there is some guys out there
Speaker 4: fighting a good fight and just kind of build it out.
Speaker 4: But it's very uncommon these days just because it's such
Speaker 4: a grind, like you have to reinvest every bit of capital,
Speaker 4: every bit of work. You know, you have to make
Speaker 4: up for your deficit with just basically unpaid labor of yourself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a cattle ranching in the West where you
Speaker 1: have this like diminishing number of generational ranching families. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but there's a romance to having a ranch. So now
Speaker 1: people make money in tech, they make money in the oil. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they make money. Oh really.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they're like, oh, I want to retire and go crabbing.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, that's the thing in crabbing, the retire
Speaker 1: from And then they're like, buy a ranch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, identify as a rancher.
Speaker 1: But the ranch doesn't make money and they made their
Speaker 1: money elsewhere, but they like get to pretend to be
Speaker 1: a rancher. I was gonna say, in crabbing, there's there's
Speaker 1: that's not a relaxing occupation people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but there's a misconception. People people like romanticized, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 4: And I'm like, dude, you're lucky to you know, crabbers
Speaker 4: don't retire like you're lucky to retire as you know
Speaker 4: from crabb and they die. Oh yeah, no, they think,
Speaker 4: you know, they think of the pictures of the sunsets
Speaker 4: and the you know, the sound of the engines going out.
Speaker 2: They're romanticized.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I mean like, meanwhile, I'm like half those
Speaker 4: people you've seen, they're they're freaking high, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean, Like they're going out to get their butt kicked,
Speaker 4: you know what i mean.
Speaker 1: Seriously, I had no idea people to think that that
Speaker 1: would be like a like a like a quaint occupation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's kind of it's like there's not many
Speaker 4: guys getting into it and a lot of the guys
Speaker 4: getting into it or like guys like that.
Speaker 2: Last No, I we actually.
Speaker 4: Don't mind it because I'm like, they go out and
Speaker 4: buy a bunch of nice stuff. You know, they're buying
Speaker 4: all new pots, they're paying whatever, they're just writing checks
Speaker 4: for it. And we always kind of jokeer like keep
Speaker 4: an eye on that one because two years we're buying
Speaker 4: our I'm a biasorraic I promise, you know, we're like
Speaker 4: making vets for like two years. Boat could be mine,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 4: gonna go get his number because he's gonna need that
Speaker 4: license and exactly half because they're gonna be like this
Speaker 4: is a hot disaster. You know. I'm best way to
Speaker 4: you know, become a millionaire crab in store with two
Speaker 4: million you know what I mean, star with two million bucks,
Speaker 4: you can be one millionaire crabber, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Uh yeah, it's kind of it's interesting, like it's a
Speaker 4: bunch of you know, not everybody, but it's a lot
Speaker 4: of you know, rich kids or you know, guys that
Speaker 4: think they're.
Speaker 5: Gonna retire and get into crabbing.
Speaker 4: And it's just funny to watch because it's like they
Speaker 4: go in there and they're all like, oh yeah, not
Speaker 4: gonna let any push me around. I'm gonna be the guy.
Speaker 4: And it's like, all right, buddy, good luck.
Speaker 1: You gotta just like you gotta just be the kind
Speaker 1: of person that could just work though.
Speaker 2: Dude, Yeah, you gotta.
Speaker 5: I'm telling you, man, you gotta be a little stubborn
Speaker 5: like you know it.
Speaker 4: Literally. That's why I didn't mind the muskie fishing yesterday
Speaker 4: because I was like, I'm literally I.
Speaker 2: Make a living doing this, doing the same thing.
Speaker 4: Over and over and over, expecting the expecting a different result.
Speaker 5: Like literally the definition of insanity.
Speaker 4: Is grabbing you know what I mean? Like you you'll
Speaker 4: go crazy, like and I am a little crazy like
Speaker 4: you just you gotta we joke, but you gotta be
Speaker 4: a little nutty to you know. Ye just go do that.
Speaker 1: But how long do you think you'll do it?
Speaker 4: I'm really trying to set myself up to be able
Speaker 4: to do it as long as I want to and
Speaker 4: as long as my body will allow.
Speaker 1: But does it get like do you how do you thirty? Okay,
Speaker 1: so let's jump like when you're forty? Yeah, are you
Speaker 1: still on the boat every day?
Speaker 4: That's my goal really, which is kind of.
Speaker 1: The lot of guys out and then you're just then
Speaker 1: you're just like the kind of dude sitting back like
Speaker 1: with calculat.
Speaker 4: Really I like doing it. I like just keep you
Speaker 4: love doing it? Yeah, I love doing it. I Yeah,
Speaker 4: I love you.
Speaker 1: Don't aspire to you don't aspire to get off the
Speaker 1: water because your system's so dialed and you got such
Speaker 1: a good marketing apparatus.
Speaker 4: My my goal is to not get off of the water.
Speaker 4: Like my goal is to be able to do it.
Speaker 4: But also, you know, I'd like to be in a
Speaker 4: spot where, you know, if I have a family someday,
Speaker 4: or you know, I have health issues or something. I'm married,
Speaker 4: Oh you're married, Oh yeah, but no kids.
Speaker 2: Not yet?
Speaker 4: No, But I have things in place where like I
Speaker 4: don't have to go out there if I don't necessarily
Speaker 4: want to, or you know what I mean, Like just
Speaker 4: in terms of like, you know, a lot of guys
Speaker 4: there's no other option.
Speaker 5: Man, Like they're they're they are literally dying out there.
Speaker 4: They're in their sixties and seventies because they've never set
Speaker 4: anything up on the back end, and or they just
Speaker 4: really want to do it, you know. But a lot
Speaker 4: of them like they they got no other option, man,
Speaker 4: so they go until they can't. You know, a lot
Speaker 4: of them have health issues and things like that. And
Speaker 4: I've grown up being a younger guy, significantly younger guy
Speaker 4: in the industry. I've grown up and seen a lot
Speaker 4: of that. And I've seen a lot of these older
Speaker 4: guys get sick and then getting hit hard spots because
Speaker 4: they got nothing. They got no insurance, they got nothing else.
Speaker 4: They can't go to work. You know, they suffer, their
Speaker 4: family suffers. So like, my goal was always to get
Speaker 4: it to a point where like I love the water,
Speaker 4: I love being out there, I love crabbing. But if something,
Speaker 4: you know, my body, I don't, you know, I don't
Speaker 4: want to run my body into oblivion just to have
Speaker 4: to pay my mortgage.
Speaker 2: When'd your first run into your wife?
Speaker 4: My wife is actually from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and I met
Speaker 4: her because my mom and stepdad and moved to Lancaster
Speaker 4: at the end of my junior or of high school.
Speaker 4: They moved there and I was in eighteen, so I
Speaker 4: had to move with them. I lived there in Cornfields
Speaker 4: for a couple of months til I turned eighteen, and
Speaker 4: then moved back to Maryland as soon as I could.
Speaker 2: You met her when you were there.
Speaker 4: She was the neighbor.
Speaker 2: Okay, well she think of the whole crab and things.
Speaker 2: She like it.
Speaker 4: She likes it. Yeah, she go out on the boat
Speaker 4: with you and stuff occasionally. Kind of funny because like
Speaker 4: you know, when I met her when we were like seventeen,
Speaker 4: I was like, yeah, I'm moving back to Maryland, like,
Speaker 4: you know, I'm gonna go be a crabber.
Speaker 5: And she's like, what the heck is that even me?
Speaker 5: And then we ended up getting married like ten years later.
Speaker 2: You know what. It was just like it wasn't part
Speaker 2: of the program.
Speaker 4: She was just like what yeah, yeah, yeah, no, dude.
Speaker 4: It was a kind of a wrench in mind.
Speaker 2: Well, she don't mind you being in that business.
Speaker 4: No, no, she don't mind it, but you know, but
Speaker 4: she don't mind it. But she also, you know, she
Speaker 4: got into this understanding with an understanding that you're married
Speaker 4: to it, you know what I mean, Like you marry me,
Speaker 4: you marry the life.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, you're pretty clear about what you're going to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 4: And she's always known me as that, and so you know,
Speaker 4: she's she's always been very supportive of it, which is great.
Speaker 4: That's important, I think because it's a lifestyle.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 4: I mean, like I said this here this week is
Speaker 4: the first time I've ever been away.
Speaker 2: In the middle of something that's weird.
Speaker 1: We're literally meaning some of the guys were last they
Speaker 1: were talking about you were on FaceTime or something with
Speaker 1: your career, trying through some.
Speaker 4: Issues the middle of like the fishing tournament.
Speaker 2: There.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is the first time my crew's
Speaker 4: ever gone and anybody's ever gone on my boat without me.
Speaker 1: What time you guys hit the water when you're out
Speaker 1: four thirty four thirty am?
Speaker 4: Yeah, you usually meet at four thirty. Uh. Sometimes when
Speaker 4: it's like stupid hot, we'll go earlier later in the season,
Speaker 4: like October. It's you know, we're meeting it because the
Speaker 4: sunrise doesn't sunrises later. We'll meet later, and we can
Speaker 4: only crab from half an hour before sunrise eight hours
Speaker 4: after that we.
Speaker 2: Can haul gear by regulation, by.
Speaker 4: Regulation, yeah, because if not, then guys would just go
Speaker 4: out there fish as many pots as they you know,
Speaker 4: they go fish one thousand pots in a day if
Speaker 4: they could go all day and night.
Speaker 2: Oh huh. That's interesting. She keeps it a little bit
Speaker 2: humane too, for.
Speaker 4: The crew, I guess.
Speaker 1: So yeah, here's here's the last couple questions. Just last
Speaker 1: thing I want to explore with you, like you're thinking
Speaker 1: about you if we're talking about okay, you're forty years old.
Speaker 1: Whatever is is like, is that resource so well managed
Speaker 1: that you can kind of comfortably plan on a future
Speaker 1: of crabbing, or is there anxiety about the resource and
Speaker 1: from from management issues, from disease issues, from climate issues,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, or is it like there's always
Speaker 1: been crabs.
Speaker 2: There are always be crabs. They're very you know, they're robust.
Speaker 4: No, there's definitely management concerns, which is what has pushed
Speaker 4: me to diversify my business in the way that I have,
Speaker 4: really with the social media and with the retail and
Speaker 4: all those kinds of things. You know, so like and
Speaker 4: I like that you said, not just the resource itself.
Speaker 5: You know, some people don't think we're just like pirates out.
Speaker 4: There, but like you know, with the management of it,
Speaker 4: with this and that, with environmental and ecological changes and
Speaker 4: all those kinds of things, is all factor into like
Speaker 4: what you're saying. And yes, I have concerned with that,
Speaker 4: you know a lot of the laws and things like that,
Speaker 4: and the fluctuating crab populations and outside market too.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: That's why I'm gone to sell in my own because
Speaker 4: it was kind of like farming before, where I didn't
Speaker 4: set the product or the price for my own product.
Speaker 4: I wanted to have a little bit more control over
Speaker 4: the price of my own product.
Speaker 2: Is that a voweltile market yeah, definitely.
Speaker 4: I mean because now like shipping's gotten so good that
Speaker 4: you know, a lot of our eighty percent of the
Speaker 4: crabs sold Maryland are coming out of Louisiana.
Speaker 2: And then our crab.
Speaker 4: Meat market, you know, the pick meat is overseas. You know,
Speaker 4: a lot of that is a different species of crab
Speaker 4: that's just like our crab that's being picked and shipped
Speaker 4: over from overseas.
Speaker 5: Shipped to you, not to I mean I don't sell no, no,
Speaker 5: not you.
Speaker 1: But you mean, like you're in Maryland, you think you're
Speaker 1: in like blue crab country.
Speaker 4: You're probably eating a venezuela and blue swimmer crab. What
Speaker 4: if you eat if you buy so you.
Speaker 1: Don't know what you're doing, and you just went into
Speaker 1: whatever and bought some crab, you're not even getting crabs
Speaker 1: from local dudes.
Speaker 2: There's a chance you are.
Speaker 4: But if that crab cake is less than thirty five dollars,
Speaker 4: there's a good chance it's not from this country. So
Speaker 4: we you know, in our area right in Maryland, a
Speaker 4: lot of the Eastern Shore, a lot of those lower
Speaker 4: grade crabs would all go to picking house, right and
Speaker 4: then those crabs are getting sold generally by the pound,
Speaker 4: of the pick and house and then they are picking
Speaker 4: those crabs by hand and pasteurizing the meat. And then
Speaker 4: that used to be the crab meat market, right, and
Speaker 4: so that gave us something to do with every crab
Speaker 4: that came over the rail. But nowadays it's not you know,
Speaker 4: it's not really like that. So I you know, I
Speaker 4: wanted the retail spot to be able to kind of
Speaker 4: control my own market a little bit. You know. My
Speaker 4: theory is, like I said, you're gonna only kill crab
Speaker 4: one time, you may as well get it. Well, it's
Speaker 4: worth the most and you kind of have to have
Speaker 4: value added to the product, I think. So I think
Speaker 4: the name of the game going forward for the future
Speaker 4: of the industry is getting the most amount for everything
Speaker 4: that comes over the rail. And so for me, it's
Speaker 4: not only selling the crab, but also the story. So
Speaker 4: that's like I said, you can only catch a crab once,
Speaker 4: you can sell the story time and time again. And
Speaker 4: it also helps with the marketing of the crab, you know,
Speaker 4: and all those kinds of things.
Speaker 1: So feasibly in the future, like if you play your
Speaker 1: cards right, in the future, you could be processing half
Speaker 1: as many crabs but still making a living.
Speaker 4: That's what I'm doing now really. I mean, you know,
Speaker 4: obviously we're shooting video and things like that, but I've
Speaker 4: kind of it really truly kills me. But I've had
Speaker 4: to dial my operate crab operation to scale it back
Speaker 4: a little bit. You know, instead of running fifteen hundred posts,
Speaker 4: we're running less than a thousand now, which is like
Speaker 4: super bizarre to me. I've never I've always just gone,
Speaker 4: you know, five days a week and ran a load
Speaker 4: of gear. But now there's only one of me, you know,
Speaker 4: and I got a lot of hands, a lot of
Speaker 4: things that right now that I'm trying to figure out
Speaker 4: how to do and build.
Speaker 2: I've kind of of.
Speaker 4: Lean more into the marketing side of the crabs, you
Speaker 4: know what i mean, selling less crabs and getting better
Speaker 4: money for him, kind of premium money for them. But
Speaker 4: it's also you know, we sell a really good product
Speaker 4: and a lot of people want to There's a certain
Speaker 4: percentage of people that are less mindful of the price
Speaker 4: of they know exactly where.
Speaker 2: It's coming from.
Speaker 4: So we kind of try to tell the story that
Speaker 4: a lot of transparency as to where your product comes from,
Speaker 4: what goes into catching that product, and then also giving people,
Speaker 4: you know, telling the story of the product and the
Speaker 4: people that catch it and the whole kind of how
Speaker 4: everything works. And you know, there's enough people out there
Speaker 4: that are you know, really interested in that, and they
Speaker 4: just like a good product. They know our crabs come
Speaker 4: from Maryland. I don't buy crabs from out of state,
Speaker 4: which is a real pain. I know I could make
Speaker 4: a load more money if I did, but I am
Speaker 4: just I'm committed to you know, I'm not going to
Speaker 4: deceive people to try to make a couple extra bucks.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
Speaker 4: What kind of the stick that I have is that
Speaker 4: you know is the transparency part.
Speaker 2: You know, you know where it's coming from.
Speaker 4: You can see it, like we just did live stream
Speaker 4: and ship crabs and so like you know, i'd write
Speaker 4: your name on a crab, you get that crab two,
Speaker 4: you know a week later.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've got I've got buddies, acquaintances, buddies, black cod, salmon, bison, cattle.
Speaker 1: I could probably go on that have adopted the model
Speaker 1: you're talking about of being like here I am. Here's
Speaker 1: how I do what I Here's how I produce my product.
Speaker 1: You can come out, you can come to my ranch
Speaker 1: and look at it. You can come on my boat
Speaker 1: and look at it. Here's the people that are doing it.
Speaker 1: There's this guy, this guy, this guy. We go out.
Speaker 1: Here's how we catch what we do, Here's how we
Speaker 1: process what we do. You can come visit the damn
Speaker 1: Kyle if you want. And in the end you buy
Speaker 1: what you know from people you know. And you saw
Speaker 1: the whole thing happen.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: And all of them have achieved some level of liberty
Speaker 1: through through through the transparentity of their operation. They've atrieved
Speaker 1: a level of freedom from the market, meaning oscillating stuff.
Speaker 1: They have a client tele and it's a luxury or
Speaker 1: however you want to look at it, but they have
Speaker 1: a client tele that's like, it's worth a couple of
Speaker 1: bucks to me to get.
Speaker 2: It from you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, because.
Speaker 1: Because I like how you do it, and I like
Speaker 1: the things you think about, right, and I like the
Speaker 1: way you treat everything, and I'll just pay a couple
Speaker 1: of bucks more.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And right now, that's where I'm That's that's how
Speaker 4: I'm making it work.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: I don't know if it's always going to be like
Speaker 4: that or where that side of my business is going
Speaker 4: to go.
Speaker 2: But right now.
Speaker 5: That's you know, that's it we're doing.
Speaker 2: There's a lot more.
Speaker 4: Work man on the back end, and you I mean
Speaker 4: you got to be one hundred percent committed to everything,
Speaker 4: and there's you know, you're responsible for every part of
Speaker 4: that process now, you know, which is a humbling experience.
Speaker 4: You know. I when I got into it sell my own,
Speaker 4: I thought like, oh man, all the crab buyers, they
Speaker 4: make all the.
Speaker 2: Money, you know what I mean. Like, and then you
Speaker 2: become the guy.
Speaker 4: Selling retail and you're like, holy crap, I gotta keep
Speaker 4: these little basherds live all the week. I'm dealing with
Speaker 4: a bunch more people. I got a retail operation to
Speaker 4: keep up, you know, Facebook pages to run ads to me.
Speaker 5: You know, it's I mean, it's nuts, man.
Speaker 4: It's like you know, it's every every part you know
Speaker 4: of the vertical integration you're responsible for. You know, which
Speaker 4: is good in the long run, I think. But it
Speaker 4: takes a lot of time. There's a steep learning curve.
Speaker 4: But it's funny because as you mentioned, like you can
Speaker 4: come visit the cow. So my retail spot the crab
Speaker 4: stand is it's called Bocking Points Seafood. But I it
Speaker 4: was just a grass lot, right, So I started, there's
Speaker 4: just selling crabs out of the bed of my truck.
Speaker 4: And I bought this little grass lot for cheap in
Speaker 4: the next town over, and I put.
Speaker 2: Some gravel down, and then I got a refrigerator trailer.
Speaker 4: I was selling out of that. And now, you know,
Speaker 4: especially since I've kind of leaned into the whole story
Speaker 4: of it. To build the crab stand, I bought a
Speaker 4: like a forty one foot like wooden crab boat. It
Speaker 4: was sunk, and tore it all down and rebuilt, took
Speaker 4: the engine out, just decked the inside, built a canopy
Speaker 4: and turned it into like my retail spot, and then
Speaker 4: I dug a hole in the ground and put the
Speaker 4: boat into it so it looks like it's sitting on
Speaker 4: the waterline. And then we backed their fridge trailer up
Speaker 4: to it. Because everybody that would come to the crab
Speaker 4: stand was like had a story about Krabber's other granddad
Speaker 4: was a crabber, and you know, they used to buy
Speaker 4: them off the boat, and everybody wanted to come see
Speaker 4: the boat, and so that's not really feasible, but I
Speaker 4: just thought it'd be cool to like bring the boat
Speaker 4: to the people.
Speaker 2: So now you can end.
Speaker 4: The boat's got a good story, you know, we tell
Speaker 4: the history the family that owned the boat. You know,
Speaker 4: they've come and visited it like they were just really
Speaker 4: glad to see it, not out to pasture, you know.
Speaker 4: So it's a little unique, but it's one of those
Speaker 4: little things that people really like, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: They like to be able to come and see an actual,
Speaker 4: real legit Wooden Deltaville built crab boat and then buy
Speaker 4: crabs off the boat, you know, you know, and take
Speaker 4: pictures with it and whatever. And it's a good landmark,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. You can't miss the forty
Speaker 4: buried in the ground, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: The only one you get a landmark, it gets education.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I have stuff there that I've set up with,
Speaker 4: you know, different kinds of commercial fishing equipment, just that
Speaker 4: you know, for people to look at and check it
Speaker 4: out and you know, stuff like that.
Speaker 1: That's great, man, The whole thing's cool. So here's the
Speaker 1: last question for you. It's day three of the tournament.
Speaker 2: I don't want to.
Speaker 1: Get into who's doing what and who's getting what day
Speaker 1: three of the tournament. Every day there's different rules, different objectives, right,
Speaker 1: different fish you're supposed to catch?
Speaker 2: What's your I'll tell you what I.
Speaker 1: Think, then you can tell me where this is. Where
Speaker 1: I'm heading with this. Of all the days of the tournament,
Speaker 1: today's rules set is the most exciting to me. Yes
Speaker 1: days was the least exciting. To Where do you sit?
Speaker 4: I I don't know the rules for today?
Speaker 2: You better find out?
Speaker 4: Well, right, that's what I'm saying. I've heard like a
Speaker 4: bunch of different things, so I don't know exactly what
Speaker 4: you know?
Speaker 2: What is gospel would be?
Speaker 1: Would be that won only give you a tip, a
Speaker 1: competitor tip, friendly tip between competitors. Yeah, it would be
Speaker 1: very wise for you to dig in on the rules
Speaker 1: for today, yeah before you gead out.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 2: I mean we just days. It's pretty simple.
Speaker 5: Yeah, But I mean, well, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Like we've heard.
Speaker 4: Last I heard, you were still making them up, making
Speaker 4: them up so you could I still win today.
Speaker 1: Listen, I'm want to be clear about something. I had
Speaker 1: nothing to do with these rules. How you know that
Speaker 1: what I'm saying is true? I would never in a
Speaker 1: million years have made yesterday Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yesterday was tough man that.
Speaker 1: I would never in a million years have made anything
Speaker 1: to do with muskies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm anti musky. Yeahs.
Speaker 4: I thought about that, but I was like, you know,
Speaker 4: I get it. We're you know, we're at Lake of
Speaker 4: the Woods and it's known for muskie. So it's like
Speaker 4: people would be bummed if you didn't involve them in
Speaker 4: some way. But also if you were to make them
Speaker 4: like the main course, you know, it would have been
Speaker 4: a real boring day. It would have been a real
Speaker 4: radio silence. I mean, yesterday there wasn't much going.
Speaker 2: On well the evening well yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 4: Mean so today, could it be anybody's game that I think.
Speaker 1: That today there's a lot of point opportunities. Today, it's
Speaker 1: a day where there's a lot of different specialties could
Speaker 1: come into play, a lot of different approaches and tactics
Speaker 1: could come into play. And it's a day where like
Speaker 1: the kind of guy that can go out and just
Speaker 1: catch a lot of kinds of fish, it's his day, right,
Speaker 1: this is not a specialist day.
Speaker 5: I'm glad to hear that I get a fish in
Speaker 5: the boat.
Speaker 4: It's hard to catch like dial on one thing yes
Speaker 4: on the boat.
Speaker 1: Was yesterday It was like the most specialist of all
Speaker 1: specialist days. It is a generalist day. And when it
Speaker 1: comes to hunting and fishing, I'm a generalist.
Speaker 4: Same jack of all trades, master and none.
Speaker 2: That's what I like to hear.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when you're a crab specialist with it. But you're
Speaker 1: a generalist and you have a.
Speaker 4: Doctorate in crabbing, but you know a minor and everything else,
Speaker 4: minor in generals general collecting of crustaceans and other various critters.
Speaker 2: Well, good luck for today.
Speaker 5: Appreciate it you too, man, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, thanks for coming on next to.
Speaker 4: Finally talk face to face and hang out a little bit.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I appreciate it, and I'm good to hear about
Speaker 1: crabbing and good to at tonight at the awards ceremony.
Speaker 2: Hope he'll be the guy with a huge check. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: actually got a huge check.
Speaker 4: Did you actually you actually got a big check to.
Speaker 2: The actual big check.
Speaker 4: Nice. That's cool.
Speaker 2: We had to carry that on the plane rolled up.
Speaker 4: Oh nice?
Speaker 1: All right, man, Thanks, stay tuned if you want to
Speaker 1: find out what happened with the fish Eater classic, stay tuned.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's gonna be the videos are gonna start
Speaker 1: dropping on YouTube. Just pay attention. Fish Eater Classic Fishing
Speaker 1: Tournament filmed up here in beautiful Lake of the Woods,
Speaker 1: Ontario at the crow Rock Lodge, which I would highly
Speaker 1: recommend to anyone that wants to come and have like
Speaker 1: a a.
Speaker 2: Fresh water fishing bonanza.
Speaker 4: We ain't roughing it really. The food is really good.
Speaker 1: I mean this place, it's great fishing, great great resource,
Speaker 1: great fishing.
Speaker 2: Check it out crow Rock Lives. Thanks guys.
Speaker 4: Yeah,