Bushel

Crabbing in May can be very unpredictable, but with the warming weather and a forecast on the 17th calling for sunny skies and calm winds, I knew the day on the bay would be beautiful.I headed for my hot spot and crabbed for four hours, moving the equipment often, since in the spring you can easily deplete the supply of crabs in any given area, and the payoff of 41 crabs was well worth the work.A half bushel of beautiful males is a good catch for May.The following Monday, my friend and I were skeptical as, at 4 a.m., we watched the weather channel forecasting 15- to 25-mph winds and severe thunderstorms with stronger gusts.

Mike Kobus is a native Baltimorean, born and raised in Highlandtown. His interest in crabbing began when he was a child spending summers at a shore home in Pasadena. For the past 25 years, Mike has crabbed every nook and cranny of the Chesapeake Bay region, from the back bays of Ocean City to the C&D Canal. He has produced an hourlong video, "Crabbing the Chesapeake," that includes crab facts, crabbing tips and steaming instructions. For more information, visit his Web site at http: //www.

Crabbing for fun is about to get more complicated in Maryland.Under regulations proposed by the state Department of Natural Resources, recreational crabbers will still be able to catch enough crabs for the dinner table -- up to a bushel a day -- without a license. But those who want to take a feast's worth of crabs, two to three bushels a day, will need a new $5 seasonal license.The proposed rules, scheduled to go into effect April 1, will affect crabbers who tie crab pots to their piers or set trot lines and collapsible crab traps from a boat.

The combination of drought and the lowest grain prices in more than a decade made 1998 one of the worst years ever for Maryland grain farmers, and this year isn't expected to be much better.The economic uncertainty in Asia is expected to continue to be a problem for agriculture, said Keith Collins, chief economist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.Asia accounts for 40 percent of U.S. farm exports and has a major impact on the prices farmers receive for their commodities, Collins said.

With 85 percent of the harvesting completed, the Maryland Department of Agriculture yesterday lowered its estimate of the size of this year's drought-damaged corn crop.Based on data as of Nov. 1, the department's Agricultural Statistics Service is projecting an average corn yield of 95 bushels an acre, down from the 100 bushels that it was forecasting most of the growing season.Ray Garibay, head of the Maryland Agricultural Statistics Service, said lower Eastern Shore farms have suffered the most from a shortage of rain over the growing season, but farms in other parts of the state are also reporting lower than average corn yields.

TILGHMAN -- Watermen in three Eastern Shore counties have returned to work, ending a five-day strike that failed to raise the price of oysters.After several informal meetings with buyers, the oystermen from Queen Anne's, Talbot and Dorchester counties said they had been promised up to $20 a bushel for their catch, but yesterday some received $16, less than the $18 they had been getting before the work stoppage.The watermen say the prices they are getting lag behind bushel rates being paid by seafood packers in the northern part of the bay."

TILGHMAN ISLAND -- Watermen whose boats have been docked in this historic fishing town for three days are vowing to continue "sitting ashore" until they get more money for the oysters that provide the bulk of their incomes during the fall and winter.Angry that seafood buyers and packers in the Bay Hundred area in Talbot County, from St. Michael's to Tilghman Island, are paying $18 a bushel when the going rate in other parts of the Eastern Shore is $22 to $24, the watermen say striking is their only option.

Because it's mid-July and because this is Baltimore - and because I had a couple of incredibly good steamed crabs the other night and immediately craved more - I called around for prices yesterday. (Stand by for a public service announcement from This Just In.) The big boys, the jumbo jimmies, ranged from $90 to $145 a bushel, steamed. Smaller males, mediums, ranged from $65 to $95 a bushel. Such is the price of this magnificent madness.The mild winter got the crab season off to a quick start; the April and May harvests were up significantly, according to the Department of Natural Resources.

Lawrence Murphy has been a waterman for 28 of the Chesapeake Bay's leanest years, but he still believes in a generous and forgiving Mother Nature. And this spring in the waters of Eastern Bay near Kent Island, he has been raking in a unique harvest that seems to prove him right:Baby oysters in amazing and mysterious abundance -- so many that 800 million of them are being gathered to help Maryland's Department of Natural Resources re-establish failing oyster...

An Illinois company said yesterday that it wants to build an organic grain processing plant in the mid-Atlantic area that could open the door to Maryland farmers getting paid three times as much for their soybeans."