The Washington Monument or the Capitol Dome? That is the question of the day!

The Bay is full of the fattest Blue Crabs this summer!  Early this morning, I headed to the pier to check the crab pots and found that there were thirty-eight of the nicest crabs!  These were all dumped in a bucket and hauled to the house to be boiled!  All except the females, that is!  These were either put back in the crab traps or released,  Most folks would say that I am a tad loco for this action as they relish the eggs that are found inside the female crab this time of year.  I have no taste for those but I do love these crabs!  I use them as "bait" for the others!  I suppose that gives a new meaning to the term "jailbait"!  I have found that as long as I leave a lone female in each pot, the males come flocking!  The male Blue Crab is generally much larger than the female thus supplying me with more meat!  Besides..I want that female to lay her eggs around the Bayou so I will be assured of a healthy crop of crabs again next summer!

The apron of a Blue Crab that is shaped like the Washington Monument indicates a male crab.

This brings me to the question that I get asked by a lot of the visitors to the Bayou.  "How do you tell the difference between the male and female Blue Crab?  How do you know which to toss over?"  Anyone who lives near the coastlines can easily spot the difference but folks who are never around the crabbing process might have a problem.  The difference is in what is called the "apron" of the crab.  To find this, the crab must be flipped upside-down.  There on the underside, is a flap which is the apron.  The shape of this flap is what determines the sex of the crab.  If the apron is pointed, the crab is a male..if it is rounded, it is a female.  Older females have a looser and darker apron while those that are immature have a tight, almost white apron.  This apron is where the mature female will develop a "sponge" that will hold the eggs as they grow into tiny crabs.  The sponge takes up to several hours to develop and can hold up to several million eggs at one time!  One strange fact about female Blue Crabs..they only mate one time in their life but can reproduce several times after that!

If the apron resembles the Capitol Dome, it is on a female Blue Crab.  This dark colored apron indicates that this is a mature female that is capable of reproducing.

Back when I was young, I used to go crabbing with my cousin, Margie.  We would sit for hours on the end of their pier with a string, a dead catfish and a long-handled scoop net.  That is all the "equipment" that is needed for hours of entertainment and all that is needed to catch a bucket of fat crabs! The catfish would be tied to one end of the string and tossed over into the water.  The catfish was allowed to lay on the bottom where the crabs were located. The other end of the string was tied to a pier post.  The string would be watched and once it was being tugged on by a crab, it was gently pulled to the pier.  As the crab came into view, it was scooped with the long-handled net!  It took a good bit of practice by the "puller" to get that crab up within reach of the "scooper" but it was well worth the effort.  After a morning of catching the crabs, my Aunt Marie would boil the critters.  Later in the afternoon, we would all sit around the kitchen table and pick out the crab meat.  It was here that I learned the fine art of picking crabs.  To this day, I still use the same process that I was taught at that early age.  I do remember that it was there that I learned how to distinguish the difference in the crabs but I am not sure just where I heard a simple comparison that made remembering it easy. (It could have very well been either my Uncle Alfred or my Aunt Marie that taught me this bit of information!) The male crabs have the "Washington Monument on their undersides while the female has the Capitol Dome!"  What an analogy of the sexes of the Blue Crab!  I can clearly see the resemblance but would have never thought to make the comparison to national landmarks!  Geez!  Whatever works, I guess!