The normally uneasy relationship between those who fish for a living and those who regulate them to protect the fish has become especially fractious this year. Watermen contend that state biologists in Maryland suppressed the results of their annual winter survey of bay crabs until after the state had settled on its catch restrictions. That survey showed an increase in juvenile crabs, an abundance watermen say they saw through spring and summer.
"What it does is make watermen not trust anything the department does," says Larry Simns, president of the Maryland Watermen's Association.
State officials deny keeping anything from the watermen. While juveniles were up, last winter's count showed a "dangerously low" population of spawning-age crabs, says Lynn Fegley, a state fisheries biologist. That reinforced a belief that action was needed to reduce the female catch. Maryland coordinated its crabbing restrictions with Virginia, which is banning the catching of females after Oct. 26 in its part of the bay. Virginia also is eliminating its winter crab season, when watermen dredge the slumbering creatures - mostly females - from the bottom.
Officials say it's too soon to say whether the new rules are working. Virginia's marine resources agency reports a significantly reduced catch through July, but the harvest reported by Maryland watermen was actually higher than at the same time last year. State officials caution that the reports are incomplete, and they're checking the accuracy because the numbers don't seem to square with what they've seen and heard around the bay.
Simns believes the harvest baywide is off. Other factors are hurting the watermen as well, he says. Cash-strapped consumers are buying less crabmeat. And crabmeat processors have been unable to get enough immigrant laborers, so they've cut back how many bushels of crabs they buy from watermen.
"We're not saying we still don't need to do anything," Simns says of the catch restrictions. "We're arguing about how they went about it."
State officials say they had few choices this year for reducing the female catch but are willing to consider other measures next year.
Somers, for his part, says he has caught more crabs so far this year than he did last. He focuses in spring and summer on catching molting "peeler" crabs, which he keeps in "shedding tanks" at his dock until they doff their shells and he can sell them as soft-shell crabs. Such crabs get a higher price, as much as $36 a dozen for jumbos in New York, but they take extra time tending. The females he's catching now bring $20 to $22 per bushel.
