Males will molt about 21 to 22 times in a normal lifespan and females will molt 18 to 20 times. Crabs have the interesting ability to regenerate appendages if they lose them. A miniature claw will form, for instance, if one is lost, and in the next successive molts it will reach normal size again. The soft crab, considered by many to be the ultimate in seafood eating pleasure, is eaten in almost its entirety. All that is removed are the gills, apron, eyes and stomach and mouth parts.
Most persons fry soft crabs in butter, and add nothing else.
For an improvement in taste, break up a clove of garlic and add it to the butter. The soft crab is also the most difficult crab to obtain. Baymen keep crabs about to molt in live boxes and wait for them to shed while the recreational crabber can capture them by either seining or stalking on the flats with a dip net. The soft crab is never taken in a trap or on bait because the crab usually ceases to feed two to three days before and after the molt.