crab

"(Crabbing) is a great family activity because it can be done by really young children," said Mitch Vance, shellfish project leader for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Morgan had in mind when he started crabbing at age 16.

For the freshest crab possible, you can also catch the creatures yourself on a crabbing trip such as the ones Johnson leads through the Noyo Fishing Center on a boat called the Rumblefish.

Soon he married Sally Fulford, one of the nine daughters of a local founding family, and began fishing and crabbing in earnest.

(They also eat live plants and fish.) Ask if your students have ever gone crabbing. What did they use for bait?

Diamondback terrapins frequent some of the same shallow waters along the Atlantic coast as crabs do, and they are attracted by the same fish or other bait used in crabbing. Large numbers of terrapins can end up dead in the process--on average, one terrapin per day per five crab traps.

To pay for investments in crabbing gear, watermen have fished crabs hard even as the crustaceans have declined.

Unlike some commercial fisheries, crabbing is still characterized by individually owned small boats with crews of two or four, rather than by factory ships.

Not much that's discussed in my brother-in-law Al Cowan's waterfront home surprises me, but to hear my sister-in-law and her friends try to one-up each other on their latest crabbing adventure was both fun and unexpected.

That's why crabbing is such a great leisure-time pursuit.

But for enforcement reasons, the state doesn't want to open up portions of the Oregon Coast to crabbing if other areas must remain closed, he said.

It will reopen if ocean crabbing starts before the end of December, but bays will close for the season as usual on Dec.