Maryland crab plan upsets CCA

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The Coastal Conservation Association of Maryland is unhappy with the Department of Natural Resources' proposal to legalize the commercial harvesting of crabs with finfish gear. Under the proposal, an individual licensed to take both crabs and finfish for commercial purposes may take hard crabs from pound nets, fyke nets and hoop nets.

It doesn't make the CCA, nor me, feel any better to hear that catching crabs with nets would be prohibited on designated "off" days. Either way, the proposal represents a sharp departure from previous practices.

The DNR, which appears to be on a misguided mission to provide an income for commercial fishermen in the state, says the taking of hard crabs from fish nets instead of the traditionally accepted crab pots or trotlines is expected to create a positive but undeterminable economic benefit for the watermen and for crab processors.

What are they thinking up there in Annapolis?

Here's what bothers me: No biologist disagrees that the pressure on the Chesapeake Bay's crabs remains super high and that supplies remain very low. So why would the DNR want to increase the removal of crabs? If anything, shouldn't they decrease it?

For good measure, in keeping with its apparently cozy arrangement with the commercial sector, the DNR wants to remind us recreational crabbers that we aren't wide-eyed innocents. It says, "Recreational crabbers are believed by many to take a significant number of crabs from the Bay. A recent study estimates recreational crabbers in the Bay took as much as 7 to 4million crabs in 2001 and 2002." However, it agrees this represents a small percentage of the commercial harvest -- between 5.3 and 8.5percent the past two years.

And what's this about the DNR "believing" the recreationals did this and that? Where are the hard figures to back up such claims? I crab and I've never been asked how many crabs I remove from the water. It's kind of like the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission which "believes" recreational anglers take the majority of the striped bass. Mind you, there's no data to back them up, either. No one I know has been questioned about crabs or stripers, but somehow, they magically know what the recreational sector does.

A tarot card reader would be jealous of these government eggheads.

Rightly, the CCA/MD is upset about the whole deal, including the fact that the watermen would not have to report how many crabs they catch in various nets, or where such nets are located.