When I arrived at the farm, I was hot and tired from 9 hours of driving. Even with the A/C working in the car, the sun beating on me and the aggressive drivers wore me down.
The first order of business: check the crab traps and swim in the Chesapeake Bay.
The Bay is 1,500 feet to the east. His neighbor has graciously allowed Brett to hang 4 traps off his pier. When I visited last October, we only caught one crab – and she was a she. And in order to help preserve the crab population, the females are tossed back.
This time, we caught about a dozen. We still threw back the females, unless, of course they had just shed their shells, and we would enjoy them as soft shell crabs. The males were steamed and enjoyed simply.
It’s easy to distinguish between the females and the males: the apron on the underside clearly shows which is which.
Males:
Females: