Not what it was earlier,, 4 sure ... 9/17/23 OL

[king crab 48]

  Took a ride down to try crabbing again, was a beautiful day!  Water STILL   filthy,,  tide was coming in till around 1 pm. EELS were on fire ,, turtles seemed to be non existent,, but crabbing was slow at best, with most being 4 inchers . Outgoing tide fared a little better, but still no bigger, boys like previous months.  Ended up taking 14 ,,  5/14, to 5/1/2 inch crabs ,,, as I use them for sauce crabs. Hope it gets better, but not much confidence at this point of the year , but you don't know if you don't try

[JohnS]

Hey its better than nothing. This year, did a lot of measuring for sure. Nice report.

[MichaelD]

Linguine and tomatoes to the rescue. 

You usually cull at 6 inches. 

 

[Horsin]

 Took a ride down to try crabbing again, was a beautiful day!  Water STILL  filthy,,  tide was coming in till around 1 pm. EELS were on fire ,, turtles seemed to be non existent,, but crabbing was slow at best, with most being 4 inchers . Outgoing tide fared a little better, but still no bigger, boys like previous months.  Ended up taking 14 ,,  5/14, to 5/1/2 inch crabs ,,, as I use them for sauce crabs. Hope it gets better, but not much confidence at this point of the year , but you don't know if you don't try

Glad you got something as I am pretty much resigned to the point that I think the crabbin season is over for me  
Been making do with lake fishin which has been better than average but last few weeks they have been treating the lakes for weeds and it has killed that plan B for me
As I write this I am looking out the window at pouring rain so hope is a four letter word to me at this point  

[Horsin]

Linguine and tomatoes to the rescue.  

You usually cull at 6 inches.  

 

Yeah normally this time of year most of us think that 6 is it for a cutoff and BTW as I just noticed those bellies looked very white to me.

[AX MAN]

Yeah Sean, I was lucky if I had one Rusty bottom one last time I was an old lime. I did find a lot of Rusty ones down on oyster River but you really got to work for those buggers even scooping them is quite a bit more difficult than over there in Old Lyme they're substrate there's a lot of clay mix with the reeds and roots just makes it difficult and the crabs just duck into the holes

[Crabholic]

Id have better luck promising you guys tomorrows winning lottery numbers than tell u what the big crabs are doing.  Just when u tjink u understand they fool you. All i can promise is they eat they swim and they bite. Anybody can catch crab and a lot of then imo thats the easy part. Hard part, is staying on them figuring them out and consistently getting the monsters..

[SHELLFISH]

Thanks for the report but it really surprised me! Sean I retired from CT 10 year sago and moved to Florida as you well know.
I stop back here to look at your crabbing posts occasionally to reminisce my CT crabbing experiences! You usually catch big crabs with big claws that I miss so much! Down here we have a lot of crabs but they are small. One year I caught 120 crabs and only two were over 6 inches! It sounds like CT has taken a hit in their crab population! What a shame! Here is a picture of a Norwalk CT 8 inch crab and another 7.5 inch crab I caught while still living there. I really miss those monsters that were so common!
We have some bigger crabs down here but I would have to travel an hour and a half north or south and gas is fust too expensive right now!  The last picture is what I am catching here recently. Their claw size is pitiful! 

[king crab 48]

 Yes, I see what you mean,, small claws!!   We had an awesome start to the season from mid May until first of August,,,,, BIG males every time, and lots of them. A couple trips I had 6-10 over 7 ,,out of 25 crabs,  Then came the rains ,, big time!!  CT river is still a mud hole and more rain coming this weekend. Good thing I picked and vac sealed meat in the early days because I don't think we will have a fall run 

[Horsin]

Yes, I see what you mean,, small claws!!   We had an awesome start to the season from mid May until first of August,,,,, BIG males every time, and lots of them. A couple trips I had 6-10 over 7 ,,out of 25 crabs,  Then came the rains ,, big time!!  CT river is still a mud hole and more rain coming this weekend. Good thing I picked and vac sealed meat in the early days because I don't think we will have a fall run  

It could be worse as 85 years ago the Hurricane of 38 hit on the  21st.
My mother who was 13 at the time told me stories of how they literally had so many trees blocking the street they lived on that the trees were not completely cleared until November as all they had back then were hand saws axes and horse pulled wagons to haul away the wood.
Yep all we have to deal with this weekend is the outer bands of a Tropical Storm that will only drop another 6 inchs of rain over the weekend