Md state record ?

[Crab Cat]

Here's pic of that 10-7/8.

[mark fix]

I have made up my mind!I am going to try and catch a record and not eat him!

[GCRhoads]

This is going to sound like a tall fish tale but it is true.  I don't recall the exact year but it was around 1970.  My parents, my brother, and myself went crabbing one summer day in Still Pond -- northern Chesapeake just south of the mouth of the Sassafras River.

I was just a kid and I had a crab on my line that was too strong and heavy for me pull in.  My mother took the line and said something to the effect of "My God.  This is the heaviest crab I've ever felt; I can hardly pull it up."  When she pulled the crab up to near the surface, none of us could believe it.  It's body was as big as the net! -- a good foot across!  Earlier the same day we caught an 8 incher which was the biggest monster any of us had ever seen and this monster looked like a baby in comparison to what we had just pulled up.  It was a freak of nature, the "Andre the Giant" of blue crabs.

Unfortunately the crab was too big to get the net around it and we couldn't haul it aboard (this is where it sounds like a tall fish tale).  It may have been the all time record for a blue crab in the Chesapeake but we couldn't bring it in and measure it to determine precisely how big it was.

[bgfishhook1]

   Had I known at the time I would have taken this Crab to a certified
   report station to be on record. This Crab was caught on a hand line
   in the narrows on the Wye Rive in 1984 he was 9.5 inches and
   the reason that I did not get him mounted was he lost a claw somewhere
   in his life and the little claw never caught up to the much larger claw. I
   wish that I could live this one over because I would have got him certified
   and mounted .

     BOO ON ME !~~~~~~~ But at least I do have a picture of him .

   BGFISHHOOK1

   P.S. As you can see by this picture my BRIDE is holding this crab tight agents her .