hi all and hope yall had a great holiday. i went oystering friday and while tonging oyster i observed a couple of commercial crabbers in the area. between the two boat that work this particular area they have around 400 traps in the water. sometimes we have to anchor between traps to oyster. anyways the two boats looked to be doing pretty well. the close traps i saw them pull all had crabs in them, although i was pretty busy so im not sure how many were culls. this is a pretty shallow around around 2-3 feet. i actually caught 2 blue crabs myself with my oyster tongs. unfortunately they didnt make it into the boat
i have noticed my last few trips that we tong alot of baby stone crabs with the oysters. if its any indication of adult numbers in deeper water then the stone crab population should be thriving. it was a beautiful day high in the 70's very little wind and the water was crystal clear which is unusual for a mud flat. at the end of the day we wound up with 5 sacks of oysters, we shucked them saturday and wound up with over 5 gallons!!! needless to say our friends and family are eating well.
