THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 13, 1994 TAG: 9407130364
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: AROUND THE BAY IN 50 DAYS
Earl Swift is exploring the geography, history and people of the
Chesapeake Bay on a 50-day kayak trip that began July 1.
SOURCE: BY EARL SWIFT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 179 lines
Scientists don't know squat about crabs, goes the saying in Saxis. They can spout opinions about why the Chesapeake Bay blue crab catch has fallen off this year, why watermen throughout the Bay are pulling empty crab pots from the bottom. But that's just talk, say the crabbers of this tiny village on Pocomoke Sound just shy of the Maryland line.
``It ain't but one thing,'' said Ralph Miles, drawing on a Marlboro and staring out over the water from the crab house he runs with his older brother, Aubrey. ``It's the croakers eatin' em up.''
``It's the croakers,'' Aubrey agreed. ``It ain't overfishing with the crab pots.''
Aubrey's son, Lee, jumped in, ``It's not the crab pots.''
``It's the croakers,'' Ralph nodded. ``Croakers all over out there, and the crab'll just have shed and as soon as it does, that croaker will eat it right on the bottom.
``In the early '50s there were croakers in the Bay, and they'd take seine nets and catch them. Then the croakers left, and they didn't come back. Then, these past three years, they started coming back.''
Aubrey shook his head. ``The fish'll do more damage to the crab down there then the crabber will,'' he said. ``I'd rather have the crabs the fish are eating this year than I would what we've bought from the crabbers.''
Aubrey and Ralph do agree with state officials and environmentalists on one point: The harvest has slipped from its level of four years ago, and this year it's especially bad. Aubrey, 66, and Ralph, 64, have been in the business since their father opened his first crab house in 1941. Miles Brothers Inc. is one of 11 crab houses in Saxis, a town devoted almost exclusively to the blue crab, and in particular, the soft shells. And they've never seen so few crabs.
Outside the crab house's shade, bowlegged piles support a network of wooden catwalks and dozens of large tanks (or floats). The brothers separate each day's catch according to how close the crabs are to molting,when they shed their shells. As soon as they've peeled, they're plucked from the tanks, put on ice and shipped to New York restaurants.
Problem is, a crab about to shed - a ``peeler'' - is especially vulnerable to fish for several hours. Before and after it sheds, the crab's protective exoskeleton is pliable, no tougher than paper, and the creature is all but helpless. The fish just gobble them up along with baby crabs that offer no defense.
``It's the rockfish too,'' Ralph said. ``I remember seeing a picture of a rockfish somebody had caught, and when they opened it up there were 64 baby crabs inside of it. Sixty-four.''
Aubrey had appeared in his pickup moments after I paddled into the town's harbor. ``You the fellow from the Norfolk newspaper?'' he had asked. I'd answered that I was.
``Well, hold on a minute,'' he said. ``My son's gone to get his camera, and if you like you can come over to the crab house after he takes your picture and we'll fix you a sandwich.''
So here I was at the crab house. The Miles brothers and several friends were sitting inside, more to escape the heat and the flies than work. Only a few boats were out on the Bay: The wind had Pocomoke Sound churning, and many watermen had taken the day off rather than battle the weather for a miserable catch. ``Hell, if they were catching crabs,'' Ralph said, ``Hurricane Hazel couldn't keep them from going out.''
Among the lunch-time loiterers was Alvin Stoops, a 71-year-old waterman whom the Miles brothers credit with doing more for the soft-shell industry than anyone else on the Bay.
Forty years ago crabbers used baited pots. They'd catch crabs, sure enough, but along with the catch came a lot of junk crabs, drawn by the bait. Stoops, back in town after a hero's turn in World War II, noticed as he walked along the area's marshy coast that every oil can, basket or drum washed ashore had a peeler inside and he figured that a crab ready to shed sought such refuge until its shell hardened again. Maybe, Stoops thought, a peeler might be more attracted to a crab pot that offered a place to hide, rather than a prospect of a meal. So one day he threw away the bait.
Stoops began hauling in crab pots that teemed with soft shells. Soon all of Saxis had gone to baitless pots, and within a few years watermen the Bay over had followed suit.
``You gotta experiment,'' Stoops said. After lunch, Aubrey took me on a tour of Saxis, most of whose 350 residents live along one road that doubles back on itself several times as it heads away from the water.
We passed side streets named for the town's volunteer firemen, drove over a marsh lousy with muskrat, passed a vacant lot where the movie theater once stood, then passed a shuttered general store. Saxis had 13 stores at one time, Aubrey told me. The last one closed a few months ago. Now, crabbing is all that's left.
Swift's next report will appear Friday.
Earl Swift is exploring the geography, history and people of the Chesapeake Bay on a 50-day kayak trip that began July 1. Scientists don't know squat about crabs, goes the saying in Saxis. They can spout opinions about why the Chesapeake Bay blue crab catch has fallen off this year, why watermen throughout the Bay are pulling empty crab pots from the bottom. But that's just talk, say the crabbers of this tiny village on Pocomoke Sound just shy of the Maryland line.
``It ain't but one thing,'' said Ralph Miles, drawing on a Marlboro and staring out over the water from the crab house he runs with his older brother, Aubrey. ``It's the croakers eatin' em up.''
``It's the croakers,'' Aubrey agreed. ``It ain't overfishing with the crab pots.''
Aubrey's son, Lee, jumped in, ``It's not the crab pots.''
``It's the croakers,'' Ralph nodded. ``Croakers all over out there, and the crab'll just have shed and as soon as it does, that croaker will eat it right on the bottom.
``In the early '50s there were croakers in the Bay, and they'd take seine nets and catch them. Then the croakers left, and they didn't come back. Then, these past three years, they started coming back.''
Aubrey shook his head. ``The fish'll do more damage to the crab down there then the crabber will,'' he said. ``I'd rather have the crabs the fish are eating this year than I would what we've bought from the crabbers.''
Aubrey and Ralph do agree with state officials and environmentalists on one point: The harvest has slipped from its level of four years ago, and this year it's especially bad. Aubrey, 66, and Ralph, 64, have been in the business since their father opened his first crab house in 1941. Miles Brothers Inc. is one of 11 crab houses in Saxis, a town devoted almost exclusively to the blue crab, and in particular, the soft shells. And they've never seen so few crabs.
Outside the crab house's shade, bowlegged piles support a network of wooden catwalks and dozens of large tanks (or floats). The brothers separate each day's catch according to how close the crabs are to molting,when they shed their shells. As soon as they've peeled, they're plucked from the tanks, put on ice and shipped to New York restaurants.
Problem is, a crab about to shed - a ``peeler'' - is especially vulnerable to fish for several hours. Before and after it sheds, the crab's protective exoskeleton is pliable, no tougher than paper, and the creature is all but helpless. The fish just gobble them up along with baby crabs that offer no defense.
``It's the rockfish too,'' Ralph said. ``I remember seeing a picture of a rockfish somebody had caught, and when they opened it up there were 64 baby crabs inside of it. Sixty-four.''
Aubrey had appeared in his pickup moments after I paddled into the town's harbor. ``You the fellow from the Norfolk newspaper?'' he had asked. I'd answered that I was.
``Well, hold on a minute,'' he said. ``My son's gone to get his camera, and if you like you can come over to the crab house after he takes your picture and we'll fix you a sandwich.''
So here I was at the crab house. The Miles brothers and several friends were sitting inside, more to escape the heat and the flies than work. Only a few boats were out on the Bay: The wind had Pocomoke Sound churning, and many watermen had taken the day off rather than battle the weather for a miserable catch. ``Hell, if they were catching crabs,'' Ralph said, ``Hurricane Hazel couldn't keep them from going out.''
Among the lunch-time loiterers was Alvin Stoops, a 71-year-old waterman whom the Miles brothers credit with doing more for the soft-shell industry than anyone else on the Bay.
Forty years ago crabbers used baited pots. They'd catch crabs, sure enough, but along with the catch came a lot of junk crabs, drawn by the bait. Stoops, back in town after a hero's turn in World War II, noticed as he walked along the area's marshy coast that every oil can, basket or drum washed ashore had a peeler inside and he figured that a crab ready to shed sought such refuge until its shell hardened again. Maybe, Stoops thought, a peeler might be more attracted to a crab pot that offered a place to hide, rather than a prospect of a meal. So one day he threw away the bait.
Stoops began hauling in crab pots that teemed with soft shells. Soon all of Saxis had gone to baitless pots, and within a few years watermen the Bay over had followed suit.
``You gotta experiment,'' Stoops said. After lunch, Aubrey took me on a tour of Saxis, most of whose 350 residents live along one road that doubles back on itself several times as it heads away from the water.
We passed side streets named for the town's volunteer firemen, drove over a marsh lousy with muskrat, passed a vacant lot where the movie theater once stood, then passed a shuttered general store. Saxis had 13 stores at one time, Aubrey told me. The last one closed a few months ago. Now, crabbing is all that's left. MEMO: Swift's next report will appear Friday. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
EARL SWIFT
Ralph Miles, 64, is a crabber at Miles Brothers Inc. in Saxis.
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