The Tigers played an amazing game that third day in November 2012 and so did I. In the end the Tigers lost but I totally won. That third day in November my friend from work took me crabbing for my first time. It was really, really, really fun and easy to get the hang of once you get past all the gross factors... and let me tell ya there were multiple gross factors so you have been warned. I took pictures of most of them. If cleaning sea life grosses you out then you need to skip this post. If you are bold and enjoy the great wild then come along for this trip to deliciousness.
We took our time getting our things ready and got to the fishing spot at about 10am. We brought snacks and waters and our game faces.
The supplies we needed to crab with:
String
Turkey necks (raw, for real)
A net
One day fishing license (we legal, people)
Rubber boots
Sun block and Off
This was our spot, a waterway near the Neches River in Bridge City. We saw several women and families so we felt this was a safe place for us.
My friend took some pictures of me in the crabbin' zone lol. I was loving every second of reeling those suckers in. They were so pretty; brown on top, a little red here and there, and the prettiest blue on their legs.
So whatchoo do is take a turkey neck, about 6 inches long, tie string tight around and throw the turkey neck (with the string attached lol) out in to the middle of the water way where it (should) sink to reach a deep part in the waterway; tie the string to something on the bank, anything, a stump, the handles on your cooler or the legs of your chair...or when you're desperate, a rock, and wait to see that string tighten and bob up and down as a crab has hold of the turkey neck on the end and is trying to walk away with it. You bring your net and you ever so gently pull that sting and turkey neck in...when you see the meat throug hthe murkey water scoop it all up with the net and if the crab was dumb enough to hold on all the way, you got yourself a soon-to-be-tasty treat in that net. We checked the five inch rule of the crab on a handy ruler the cooler had on its lid and deposited our catch in the cooler.
Since we were just two girls in a man's world we were concerned about our safety out there. We had several factors on our side. It was the first day of hunting so many hardcore fellows were in the woods. Also I had a canister of mace in my pocket so if anybody pulled over, and one man did, I had my finger on the trigger because my daddy said mace only works if you have it ready to fire.Ya know, I call it mace but it's really pepper spray. The man that pulled over actually gave us three crabs he caught because when you are hardcore and you have a small catch that day you give it to nice ladies who are hunting the same as you did. He also helped us with the rule that the crab has to be five inches wide on the top shell for you to keep it, any smaller and you have to throw it back.
At the beginning my friend was showing me the ways and reeling 'em in. I was fascinated and couldn't wait to bag one myself. One time she was reeling one in and it was really giving her hell. It was tuggin' back and had a decent amount of force against her. She asked me to pull a little with her. She wanted help but also to give me a time with it to see what the crabs do on the line. We were screeching a little from nerves and started to wonder why this pull felt different than the others, stronger. Little bubbles started to break at the surface and all I could think of was the late Steve Erwin at the waters edge when an alligator pops up and strikes....SO I FREAKED OUT. I yelled, "what if its a gator???!!! Look at those bubbles!!". My friend agreed but when we would scamper back she held onto the rope because she is hard core. In between the screeches were laughing so hard. I was like, "gators only have one good strike and after that I'll mace it!!!" Like that would have worked out.
It turns out that it was several, like two or three, crabs pulling at the same time and we were too scared to position the net below to scoop for fear of losing an arm and looking like the guy in Happy Gilmore so we missed out on two huge crabs. We watched them scuttle away through the murky water and cursed ourselves for being chickens...or turkeys. I learned then that crabs let out air bubbles too. Valuable lesson learned. My tummy was ashamed of me.
We spent about four or five hours out there and including the three crabs the man gave us we had a total of 18 crabs. 9 each for eatin'.
We got to my friends house we got those crabs on ice via a dangerous scooping technique. Lots more screeching and laughing and cursing were involved.
The ice numbs the little dudes and dudettes and preps them for the cleaning process.
That's a girl in the picture below. Ask me how I know (I feel like such a pro now). Anyway, so you flip them so you are handling their bellies, they now move very slowly, if at all. If they moved too quickly for our liking they went back in the ice bath.
I really, really tried to clean one myself but I was way too scared. I did parts of it here and there but the most important part of pulling it apart, I couldn't handle. I had the heeby-geebies real bad. My friend did most of the work. I was there to cheer her on and make her laugh.
I'm not going to get into the exacts of how you clean them but we did separate the big claws from the rest of their clean bods. This is my favorite picture. The colors on those claws are amazing!
The bods with the juicy meatsssss.....YUM!!!
A coworker told us how to microwave them in a way that makes them taste like restaurant quality crabs. It was astonishing how good they turned out. We put ten in the Pyrex, covered them in melted butter with bay leaves, some Tony's, Some california garlic, and some Slap Yo Momma. And, slap yo momma, that was the bestest flavors ever!!! My friend put Reynolds wrap over the dish and microwaved it the same number of minutes as the number of crabs you were cooking. This steamed them like a champ.
BUTTAAAA!!! lol
Eating was so fun. We were laughing and so proud of ourselves for eating what we caught all in the same day. It was very satisfying. It was like eating crawfish for all the mess you make pulling it apart to get the meat. All totally worth it. We listened to music and sat and drank and ate and gabbed. Eating the 9 crabs took about an hour and a half and we could have downed more but that was a perfect number to be full and not miserable.
Next time you're in town I'll take you crabbin' and I'll do the cleaning. After eating those suckers I can totally get past the grossness of cleaning. I promise.
