The Newsmagazine of Long Beach Island and Southern Ocean County

By Jon Coen | on August 26, 2022

SCORE!: Matt Kopenhaver shows off his catch of the day. Blue claw crabbing is a tradition for many families on LBI. (Photo courtesy Greg Kopenhaver)

That’s the scientific name for the blue claw crab. In Latin, it means “beautiful swimmer,” and to many, it’s about the most beautiful thing in our bay … until you get pinched by one. But even then, catching, cooking and eating blue claw crabs is one of the most time-honored traditions in Southern Ocean County. They can be caught in every part of our bay, inlets and up most tidal creeks.

The blue claw crab is a bottom feeder, native from Massachusetts to the Gulf of Mexico. They generally live about three or four years and reach maturity at about a year. And they are a lot of fun to catch.

DINNER TO GO: Crabs in a bucket. Keep it simple. (SandPaper File Photo)

Perhaps the biggest lure of crabbing is that it is incredibly low tech. While crabbers may go on and on about crab spots, water temperature and moon phases, crabbing is about the simplest activity in the fishing/foraging realm, and it hasn’t changed in hundreds of years.

Gloria Caswell has owned Bob’s Bay Marina in Barnegat for 39 years and crabbing has been a big part of the business the whole time. They have long rented boats to groups for crabbing. Between the skiffs and pontoon boats, she has 15 rentals.

“The crabbing is excellent this year. It has been the past three years,” she said. “We get families from all over New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, all walks of life. Whenever people come to visit their families who live locally, they like to come crabbing. They’re all nice people.”

Bob’s Bay Marina outfits the parties with the boat, life vests, cutting boards and bait. Her ship store supplies drop lines, bunker and traps. She says it’s a great activity because they almost always catch crabs and leave smiling.

The aforementioned gear couldn’t be more basic. Crabbing essentially requires a net, a string and a dead fish. There is no license required for a day of crabbing. It’s beyond simple.

Greg Kopenhaver, 52, of West Creek learned to crab while his parents and grandparents were cleaning the family beach house in the summer.

“Back then, parents would just drop kids off at the dock for six hours at a time. You’d be hanging out with a bunch of old strangers and learn from them. My grandfather had taught me to fish, so crabbing was just lock step with fishing from then on,” said Kopenhaven.

Today, he keeps his boat at Hagler’s Marina in Brant Beach. The methods have not changed in his 45 years of crabbing. Now it’s a tradition with his own boys, Greg and Matt.

“They’ve been crabbing since they were born. They love to catch them and they love to eat them,” he explained.

DROP ME A LINE: Drop lining for crabs is about the simplest form of any kind of fishing or foraging. (Photo by Jack Reynolds)

The bait is most often frozen bunker (or menhaden if you’re being technical), which generally costs about $5 for three fish at tackle shops or anywhere that crabbing boats are rented. But blue claw crabs, which are scavengers, will take to pretty much any fleshy meal, which might be the remains of a recently fileted bluefish or even chicken. Chicken necks have long been a favorite for crabbing because they’re incredibly cheap.

“I remember growing up the old supermarket on the Island used to have a section of chicken parts that you wouldn’t eat. That made great bait,” said Kopenhaver.

A wooden-handled net that can last for years runs about $12 at the local bait shop and a crab dropline, which is a weighted triangular hook to hold the bait with string runs $2 to $3, or less when you buy a set.

The dropline, or multiple drop lines, are lowered to the bottom. Then the line is pulled up. When the bait is visible, you either have a crab or you don’t. It’s that simple. Of course, more experienced crabbers will know if they have a crab on by the first tug.

“We call it catching a ‘figment.’ The kids always think they have a crab, but it’s just a figment of their imaginations,” said Kopenhaven.

Pulling up the line should be done slowly, so as to not startle the crab. But while they may be beautiful swimmers, they are not known for being particularly intelligent animals. A crab that is preoccupied with munching the eyes out of a bunker may not even realize it is being yanked toward its captor.

If there’s any real skill, it’s in the netting, which is a matter of a quick motion to catch the crab in the net. This is usually learned pretty quickly. One unspoken rule of crabbing, however, is that any crabs that escape the net are always the biggest crabs of that particular day, something everyone in the party is required to remind the unsuccessful netter of repeatedly until the last of the crabs have been eaten. That is really all that’s involved, which makes it an ideal activity for families, as opposed to the more technical aspects of fishing.

The only variation is whether crabbing from a boat or land. From a boat, droplines are usually the call. From land, traps are often used.

A “collapsible”-style trap or net is different from what is known as a “crab pot” or “crab hotel.” A crab pot is meant to be left in the water for a few hours or days. (They can be fitted with turtle excluders to keep from ensnaring a turtle, which is a reptile and has to come to the surface to breathe.) A compartment filled with bait lures crabs in through a narrow opening, from which they can’t escape. These are tied to a buoy in several feet of water and require a state Fish and Game license at the affordable fee of $2 per season, a cost that has not gone up in decades.

A collapsible trap is used much like a dropline, but when crabbing from a bridge or other structure that is too high for netting. Attached to a string, when the baited trap hits the bottom, the sides collapse, allowing crabs to swim right in. The collapsible net works the same way. When the trap is pulled upward, the string pulls the walls of the trap closed so nothing can get out.

“What we like to do is leave a string of six traps with bunker,” said Kopenhaver. “Then we go handlining. When we come back with our catch, there’s usually more crabs in those traps.”

BON APPETITE: Crabs on the table at the Kopenhaver household. (Photo GrKopenhaver)

Crabs can be stored in a cooler, traditional wooden bushel basket or often a 5-gallon bucket tossed aside at a construction site. They are not stored in water but should be covered when contained. Some purists choose eelgrass, but a wet rag will do the trick.

Cooking crabs is equally simple. Though methods vary, they mostly include steaming, either in the kitchen or out in the yard. Old Bay seasoning is the go-to, and some folks swear by adding a can of beer to the boil. Picking through crabs might be more complicated than any part of catching them, but New Jersey crabmeat is a famous summertime treat.

“We like to steam them on the burner of the grill with old bay, garlic, salt and vinegar. I let them cool and then we just pick them. My kids have been picking their own crabs since they were 6. And when we have a big catch, we’ll eat a few dozen and then just keep picking. We get piles of crabmeat and then vacuum seal it. My wife will make crab cakes, stuffed mushrooms and crab dip that we eat all year.”

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