The sun., 1908-06-07
GOOD SEASON FOR CRABS.
New York Waters Abound With Them
After Three Lean Years.

This is to be good year for grabbing
around New York All the bays hereabouts ts
are now swarming with young crabs. after
three consecutive years of scarcity.
What makes the crabs run that way
nobody knows. but that's the way they 60.
They may be plentiful year after year for
ten years. and then may come lean year
or two, or three lean years together, as has
happened just now, and then. as they have
now DONE they may return in great num-
bers. to remain plentiful for years.
In winter crabs bury themselves in mud
or sand on the bottom, with just their ey es
sticking out, and there remain in dorman /
condition until the weather begins to warm
UP little in the spring, and they burrow in
this way wherever they find the bottom
water. and even in channels In this way
it may be that whole areas of favorable
bottom are filed with them
Sometimes alternating crabs are killed
by the dumping of mud on them or the
shifting Of mud or sand on the bottom over
them; in their sluggish condition at that
season they are quite unable to work them
selves up through this covering and 40 to
free themselves. And in winter great
nu umbers Of crabs are dredged up from
where they had buried themselves.
Formerly fishermen for dredging in deep
water sometimes used crab rakes with
handles sixty feet long in the cold water
the crabs would be 80 numb that after they
had been dredged out of the mud they
would remnin motiopless in the rake uni til
they had been lifted out of water: Nova
days fishermen use in dredging for orabe
in win ter power or sail boats, and to their
dredges they attach at the back a long
pocket net
AS the crabs are dredged up they pass
over from the dredge into this net, In
~.z.lx L. t,l
also as dredge and net are drawn along
the bottom the crabs caught are washed
clear of mud. Dredging in this way with
power boat fishermen may go over piece
of bottom thirty or forty acres In extent,
dredging back and forth in lines and dredg-
ing up the bottom almost as completely
as farmer would plough an area OF the
same extent on dry land.
While in these ways great numbers OF
crabs are every winter lost or caught. still
the number thus to be deducted makes
really but a slight encroachment on the
enormous total number of crabs that lie
all around But enormous as this number
is the fact remains that in some seasons
for some unknown reason when they come
out of the mud in the spring the crabs do
not freuuent the shallow waters Of the
bays. and in such seasons the crab fishing
in these waters practically fails.
This condition of things means a loss
Of sport to many thousands Of people, old
and young. who like TO go grabbing, and
il means also u considerable financial loss
to boat owners who let boats to crabbers
In this way the last three lean years have
cost the boat owners around New York
some hundreds, or more likely thousands,
of dollars in the way of boat hire.
But this year all the bays around are
once more swarming with crabs in endless
numbers There are Just now not many
big crabs among them; they areyoung and
still mostly small, but in another month
or less they will have shed and grown TO
full size, and then there will be fun a-plenty
for every body that likes to 60 grabbing.
and work for all the boats.