Latest / The MeatEater Podcast / Ep. 905: The Life of a Crabber

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Ep. 905: The Life of a Crabber · The MeatEater Podcast

• 0:08
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• 0:43
  Speaker 1: You're joining us from the Walleye grounds of Lake of
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: the Woods, Ontario, but we're here to talk about the
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: life of a crabber in Chesapeak Bay back in America.
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  Speaker 1: Uh Luke McFadden, thanks for coming on the show.
• 0:57
  Speaker 4: Thanks for having me.
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  Speaker 1: First question for you, though, before we get into crab
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: and we're here for the Fish Eater Classic Fishing Tournament.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: You've been spending a couple of days in a boat
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  Speaker 1: with dirt myth any takeaways.
• 1:13
  Speaker 5: I like him, man, he's cool.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's man.
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  Speaker 4: He's like Not only is he like, you know, doing
• 1:20
  Speaker 4: all the filming and this and that and has somehow
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  Speaker 4: been able to like Bob and weave every single hook
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: flying past his head, he's also like you know, he's
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: part of the team.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Man, he's keep morale up.
• 1:29
  Speaker 5: He's like he's doing it every situation.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I find that every situation is better with dirt round.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: I agree. So you're you're you approve of the cameraman,
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: I agree, I do.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: So tell me, like I've followed you for a long time.
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  Speaker 1: We've talked before, and I know the kind of like
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  Speaker 1: the basic outline is that that in Chesapeake Bay, like
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  Speaker 1: in the in the blue crab world, that tends to
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  Speaker 1: be a thing that.
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  Speaker 2: That people kind of inherit.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, people come up in it and their
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: kids come up in it.
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  Speaker 2: Is that true?
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  Speaker 1: Like it's a thing that's like there's a little bit
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  Speaker 1: of a I don't know, man, like it gets handed
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  Speaker 1: down generation to generation, that lifestyle.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, you could call it like a hereditary disease in
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  Speaker 4: a lot of ways. But yeah, it's, uh, it's generally
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  Speaker 4: like a generational you know. So it's mostly like you know,
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  Speaker 4: you do it because your dad did it, and he
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  Speaker 4: did it because his dad did and he did it
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  Speaker 4: because there was no other option.
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  Speaker 2: You know what I meant, I got it, but you
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  Speaker 2: didn't inherit it.
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  Speaker 1: No, no walk me through that, like, because I mean,
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  Speaker 1: because you're a professional crabber, yeah, and have been for
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  Speaker 1: how many years?
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  Speaker 4: I mean this is I started on my own boat
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  Speaker 4: when I was eleven years old, or no, when I
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  Speaker 4: was sorry, eighteen years old. I'm thirty. So it's my
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: I think this is my eleventh crab season. Got so
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  Speaker 4: it's been a little while.
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  Speaker 2: I think I've got my ten thousand and how many
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  Speaker 2: of those seats?
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  Speaker 1: Like not that there's a lot of similarity between crab
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: and writing, but in writing, like you write for years
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: with side jobs. Yeah, a lot of people do you
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: write for years with side jobs and all of a
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  Speaker 1: sudden you're.
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  Speaker 2: Like, damn, yeah, I don't need the side job anymore, right,
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  Speaker 2: I mean, was it was? It was? It was it when.
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  Speaker 1: You're crabbing, you're all in and that's just what you're doing.
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  Speaker 1: Or did you have to kind of like did you
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  Speaker 1: have to kind of trickle into it?
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  Speaker 4: So, I mean definitely, like in the beginning, I mean
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  Speaker 4: it was like just a disaster for a very long time.
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  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, dude, it was it was like, you know,
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  Speaker 4: a lot to learn quickly, steep learning curve, but you know,
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  Speaker 4: I was like it was like I was basically working
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  Speaker 4: in the winter time to be able to go crab
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  Speaker 4: it again in the spring, you know what I mean.
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  Speaker 4: And I was just hustling anyway. I possibly could, you know,
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  Speaker 4: to continue to go in the beginning, you know, but
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  Speaker 4: I was just kind of committed to it, you know,
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  Speaker 4: I was like not going to let it fail.
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  Speaker 1: So why did you Why did you want to get
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  Speaker 1: into that anyway? What were you seeing that made you
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  Speaker 1: want to do it?
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  Speaker 4: I mean, I I started helping on a crab boat
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  Speaker 4: and I was like twelve, Just guys started taking me along,
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  Speaker 4: you know. I was just cutting fish and stuff like that,
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  Speaker 4: and I don't know, I just liked it out there.
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  Speaker 4: And when I was eighteen, I just decided I wanted to,
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  Speaker 4: you know, do it.
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  Speaker 2: And all when you were helping out, how would you
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  Speaker 2: get compensated?
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  Speaker 4: I mean I was getting paid, you know, not much,
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  Speaker 4: you know, pretty much nothing.
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  Speaker 2: You know.
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  Speaker 4: When I was a little older, like sixteen seventeen, I
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  Speaker 4: was making a little bit more.
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  Speaker 5: But I mean I think the most I got I made.
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  Speaker 4: Like when I was breaking off to go do my
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  Speaker 4: own thing was like I think I was making like
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  Speaker 4: eighty five bucks a day or something like that. Okay,
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  Speaker 4: so you know, it wasn't much. It was cash, but
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  Speaker 4: it wasn't much. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Like, so you were you surrounded by where you grew up?
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  Speaker 1: Were you surrounded by crabbers?
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  Speaker 5: No, there's not many krabbers around at all.
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  Speaker 4: Like the area that I'm from, in particular, Pasadena is
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  Speaker 4: like there's a few, but it's not it's not common whatsoever.
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  Speaker 4: I think, like we did a headcount of the fleet.
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  Speaker 4: I think, like, guys are you know, out there making
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  Speaker 4: their living doing it? I think there's like six or
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  Speaker 4: eight of us left going out of the whole town.
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  Speaker 4: Oh no, there's some more north of us. There's a
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  Speaker 4: few south of us. There's a lot more on the
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  Speaker 4: Eastern Shore. Like I'm on the western shore of Maryland.
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  Speaker 4: On the eastern Shore, there's a lot more cravers. It's
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  Speaker 4: you know, way more common. But there's a whole you know,
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  Speaker 4: there's a lot less job opportunity over there. You know,
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  Speaker 4: it's a lot less developed, and you know, there's a
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  Speaker 4: lot more low country and whatever. So historically there's always
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  Speaker 4: a lot more crabs on the Eastern shore.
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  Speaker 2: Got it? But in your town, sixty eight guys go out, Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: there's not many. Yeah, tell me like, how are you guys?
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  Speaker 1: I mean, I've gone getting blue crabs little ways, like
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  Speaker 1: I mean, I've gone from just walking around picking them up,
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  Speaker 1: stringing the chicken necks and all that.
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  Speaker 2: How are you guys doing it?
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  Speaker 4: Like?
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  Speaker 2: What does your day look like? How do you catch them?
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  Speaker 4: So we're crab potting?
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  Speaker 2: Okay.
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  Speaker 4: So there's basically like two ways to commercially catch crabs
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  Speaker 4: around that, and it's one is a trot line. So
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  Speaker 4: you got that long, you know, line with inline baits,
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  Speaker 4: you know, and then you're running along with a dipper
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  Speaker 4: or a net.
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  Speaker 2: And I've done that with guys.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't know, one.
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  Speaker 2: Hundred chicken necks on the string yea, yeah, I got it.
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  Speaker 2: And there ain't nothing wrong with that, you know.
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  Speaker 4: That's a great way to go, And that's how everybody
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  Speaker 4: starts usually because not a lot of overhead you can
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  Speaker 4: do by yourself in the beginning.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, good? And how many? How many? How many baits
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  Speaker 2: are beyond that line that you're running.
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  Speaker 4: Usually like you're running like you know, some of the
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  Speaker 4: bigger guys are running up to five thousand foot of line.
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  Speaker 4: Sometimes they'll break it up into like thousand foot or
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  Speaker 4: twelve hundred foot sections and then you know there's debate
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  Speaker 4: on how far you want your bait space, and you
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  Speaker 4: know there's some signs to it in terms of like
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  Speaker 4: you know, guys will have different lines with different space
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  Speaker 4: baits for different bottom, different times.
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  Speaker 2: Of the year all that.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're talking that deal where like just for
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  Speaker 1: people listening, like it's the big long line with every
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  Speaker 1: what distance.
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  Speaker 4: It's usually like I would say the average I think
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  Speaker 4: ours are like seven foot seven or eight foot okay,
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  Speaker 4: seven or eight feet, no hooks, yeah, just bait.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: So they either put in line like they'll either use
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  Speaker 4: like that old school like twisted like hemp line almost
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  Speaker 4: and they'll just push it together and then put the
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  Speaker 4: bait in the line. Yeah, that's like the old school
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  Speaker 4: way of doing it. Or now like a lot of
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  Speaker 4: guys like to run snoods is what they call it.
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  Speaker 4: So it's like a piece of bungee like probably six
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  Speaker 4: inches with a piece of like gas line, you know,
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  Speaker 4: you tie you tie it out in the end of
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  Speaker 4: the bungee and then double it over and stick the
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  Speaker 4: gas line over the loop. So it's like a you know,
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  Speaker 4: like a you can sent it down with the baits
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  Speaker 4: on it.
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  Speaker 2: I got it. That's kind of like the newer way
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  Speaker 2: to do it.
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  Speaker 4: A lot of guys like to run clam bags and
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  Speaker 4: all that stuff called called a snood.
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  Speaker 2: That's what comes off Turkey's head.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, I guess so right, And then.
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  Speaker 1: You string that sucker out and they're not hooked, they're
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  Speaker 1: just hanging onto the bait.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: Crabs are kind of about a stubborn as the guys
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  Speaker 4: that go catch them, So they're just like, you know,
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  Speaker 4: they're in it for the They'll hold onto that thing
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  Speaker 4: all the way up.
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  Speaker 1: Man, you can you raise the lineup and just nab
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  Speaker 1: them off there as they drop free.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, you got like an arm that hangs off the
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  Speaker 4: side of the boat, and then you pull up. There's
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  Speaker 4: a booy on either end. You pick up the buoy
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  Speaker 4: and put that on the arm, and then you drive
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  Speaker 4: the boat down the line. And as you're driving down
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  Speaker 4: the line isn't really moving, but you're picking the line up,
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  Speaker 4: you know what I mean?
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  Speaker 2: Are there dudes that do that by themselves?
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  Speaker 4: I would say most guys that do that do it
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  Speaker 4: that way, do it by themselves.
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  Speaker 2: Driving the boat.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah, I mean I I did it by myself.
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  Speaker 4: Most guys do because you ain't got to pay a helper,
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  Speaker 4: you know. So like a lot of times we will
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  Speaker 4: set the boats up kind of different, like I got
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  Speaker 4: a little trout line and boat. You Yeah, we got
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: one that we built for like some of my helpers
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  Speaker 4: and everything they've been wanting to go.
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  Speaker 5: But like we even have it with it. The console
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  Speaker 5: is just an eight by eight piece.
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  Speaker 4: Of aluminum square two and you stand on the right
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  Speaker 4: side of the boat in between I mean, you know,
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  Speaker 4: the console on your left side, and then your rollers
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  Speaker 4: on your right and the steer wheels actually on like
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  Speaker 4: facing the starboard side, so that you can stand there
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  Speaker 4: and just run it steer with your left hand and
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  Speaker 4: then dip with your right hand, and then you got
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  Speaker 4: the call box in front of you, you know what
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  Speaker 4: I mean. So's you can run it as a one
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  Speaker 4: man band pretty easy. But they're like you'll see some
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  Speaker 4: goofy boats, but it's like there's always a reason they're
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  Speaker 4: set up kind of weird, you know what I mean.
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  Speaker 4: It looks strange you're facing forward, you know, steering like this,
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  Speaker 4: but it allows you to do it by yourself.
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  Speaker 2: But then but your the main deal is running crab traps.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, so I'm potting. I'm crab potting, which is kind
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  Speaker 4: of some guys would argue, but it's I guess the
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  Speaker 4: more industrial, like larger scale. So I got gang lines,
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  Speaker 4: you know, we call them underwater lines, and it's twenty
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  Speaker 4: five pots connected to each other with a booy called
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: a hawk on either end. So it's a like a
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  Speaker 4: booye with a five foot piece of PVC pipe through
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  Speaker 4: it with a weight at the bottom and then a
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  Speaker 4: f lag at the top, and then what's the term
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: we call it a hawk?
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  Speaker 2: I have no idea.
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  Speaker 4: I've always wondered, because like a long lining, like deep
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: sea long line, and they call it a bird, you know,
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  Speaker 4: and we call them hawks.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know why, you know.
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  Speaker 4: But yeah, there's seventy five foot in between each crab pot.
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  Speaker 4: Each pot's on snap gear, so you know, it's got
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  Speaker 4: like a almost like a twenty four inch leader basically
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  Speaker 4: with a like a metal clip, and then every seventy
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  Speaker 4: five foot on the main line, there's like an overhand
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  Speaker 4: loop tied in the main line, and so each clip
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  Speaker 4: gets clipped onto the loop. So when we go to
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: pick up the crab pots, we actually picked the entire
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: row up stack them on the boat, and then you know,
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  Speaker 4: like I'm putting the line on the winder and the
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: winers hauling it into a barrel. And the barrel I
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: have a piece of PVC pipe, you know, screwed to
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: the side of the barrel, and so as each pot
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  Speaker 4: comes up, I break the snap off of the mainline
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: and then stack all the loops on the PVC pipe
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  Speaker 4: in order, you know, and then all the line goes
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: in the barrel. And then each pot as it comes up,
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: I'll break it off the mainline. And then the shaker,
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: who's kind of like your right hand guy, he'll open
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  Speaker 4: up the top door, flip the pot up, open the
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: bait door, shake the crabs out, put a new bait
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  Speaker 4: in it, close the bait door, and then put it
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: into like a hot water tank that's like kind of
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: behind us.
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  Speaker 2: And that's clean.
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: Strange deal there, man, Yeah, it's like ninety crab in though,
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: just keeping gear clean in the summertime, you know.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Because because well, I got a bunch of questions. But
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: to tell me that real quick, explain that hot water deal.
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  Speaker 1: So what you're cleaning off, we're trying like crabs.
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  Speaker 4: Everybody thinks they're just like dumb scavengers, right, But I
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: mean there's a way you can go out there and
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: catch crabs. You can go out there and make a
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: living catching crabs. And the devil's in the detail, right.
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: So we clean every pot every time it comes over
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: the rail, and we don't let them sit more than
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: like four days in the summertime, you know. So what
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: we're trying to prevent is these pots growing things like algae, barnacles.
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: We have this like brown stuff. We call it hair.
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: It looks just like hair, but it's technically kind of coral.
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: These little arthropods that we get, they're like little shrimp
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: we call them, and they it'll look like you're pots
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: covered in like grains of brown rice. They build these
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: little huts that they live inside of, you know, and
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: then the stuff, the algae and things like that will
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: catch on their little huts and start to grow.
• 12:35
  Speaker 5: So we're just trying to prevent any of that stuff,
• 12:37
  Speaker 5: you know.
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: So if you see my pots, ideally they look like
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: they're brand new. They look like they're not dirty at all,
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: But it's because we hit them every time. We're literally
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: trying to kill it, like on a microscopic level.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: Are you trying to do it like the longevity of
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: the pot.
• 12:52
  Speaker 5: I'm trying toforms of the pot, performance of the pot.
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: They don't want to trap up in a dirty pot.
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: They don't even like a slime on it or nothing.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: Really they want like that.
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: I don't know, man, I really don't because you'd think,
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: right that like it looks a little more natural to
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: the bottom or something because.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: The bottom is all the bottoms.
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: All covered in that stuff.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: It's crazy. I don't know, but yeah, we're trying to
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: keep it.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: They don't want to go into a dirty pot.
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: Now, man, they don't want to. But they also don't
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: want to go into a brand new, freshly set pot
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: or a brand new pot because it might smell of
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: yeah we yeah, exactly. Like we paint every pot every year,
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: so we dip all the pots into it like a
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: vat of paint to you know, give them them a
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: fresh coat. But like a freshly painted pot. I've seen
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: it where they do like it. But ninety percent of
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: the time they don't want a freshly painted pot. So
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: you gotta let it weather, you got, yeah exactly, But
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: you got to fish it through too. You gotta like
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: let it soak and then fish it through, get new
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: fresh bait, and it usually it's like a week two
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: weeks and they'll really start to catch, right, Man.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: That's so like not how you think of a crab.
• 13:55
  Speaker 5: Man, I know that's what I'm saying.
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: Man, everybody thinks of crabs is like they're these dirty
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: scavengers or just you know, they'll eat whatever, and you.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: Think it will and you think that's like you're convinced
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: that that's right. I mean, he doesn't want to go
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: in a dirty pot.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: It's facts. I mean it.
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: You know, it's a I go three insane amount of
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: effort to keep here clean. I mean, that's the whole
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: job in the summer, is keeping gear. And I mean
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: anybody like.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: You could look at it like you're trapping crabs or
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: you're cleaning gear. You look at it like I look
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: at it.
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I look at it. I literally look at it
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: like I'm cleaning gear and I'm hoping there's grabs in it.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Like, so tell me how like you put in a
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: hot water bath and you agitate.
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: It or no, no, just I mean since we're hitting
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: them every time every day, like we're kind of keeping
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: ahead of it, you know, so they just sit in
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: there for I think cycle time is probably seven to
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: twelve seconds on a pot. You know, the water one
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: hundred and forty five degrees, so it's not like super hot.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: So the air is already real hot and you're hovering
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: over that day bucks.
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's yeah. I mean, and we're wearing you know,
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: rubber slickers of rubber boots. So there's some brutal days
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: out there, you know, when it's like stupid humid, like
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: heat index over one hundred.
• 15:13
  Speaker 5: This tank one hundred and forty five degree waters.
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: Right behind me, there's a diesel burner heating it, like
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: right next to that.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: That's that's what heats that.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: I built it out of like a heat pump from
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: a house, like a Becket heat pump basically runs it through.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: Like a coil.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: What I'm saying like, I know what that means, but
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: I don't know what the back of heat pump is.
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: What heats your house if you have like an oil furnace, Yeah,
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: I got you the same kind of deal. Yeah, My
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: runs off car back golf cart batteries. Yeah, so yeah,
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: I mean, it can be definitely be pretty brutal.
• 15:43
  Speaker 5: Like the other second day of fishing and whatever everybody
• 15:46
  Speaker 5: was or the first day, you know, everybody's like dying
• 15:48
  Speaker 5: of the heat.
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: And I was like, man, this ain't so bad. I
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: was like, it does suck. I was like, yeah, well,
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: I mean it. You know, obviously I'm not loving it,
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: but I was like, at least I ain't wearing a
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: trash bag on the crab boat? Yeah?
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: How many? How many of those? How many? Well? How
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: big is your how big is your crew?
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: Me?
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: And three We'll come back to that. So it's four
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: guys in the boat.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and in a day, if you're going like all
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: out pulling pots, Yeah, in a day, how many traps
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: are you gonna check?
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: Five hundred and seventy five? Okay, and then to twenty
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: three rows?
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: What's a I'm sure it's seasonal, but just give me like,
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: like they're working right now, right your crew's out there
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: right now, Okay, So right now, July, a pot that
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: has blank crabs is exciting, and a pot that has
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: blank crabs is disappointing, Like what are the blanks?
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: I mean, I'm so like, right now it's pretty hot. Yeah,
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: So I mean, like, right now, if I see not
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: all crabs are created equal, right, So I'm looking for
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: big market sized crabs. So I would say if I
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: had a pot with six nice, big, heavy market sized crabs,
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: good grade, that's a good pot.
• 17:01
  Speaker 5: You do that five hundred and seenty five times.
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: You know, you're looking all right. Right now, there's a
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: load of crabs around, which is a good thing, but
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: it's also can be kind of a pain, you know,
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: Like you would pull up a pot's got twenty crabs.
• 17:12
  Speaker 5: I'd say the average pot has ten to fifteen crabs
• 17:15
  Speaker 5: in it right now, got it?
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: But I would say, like, right now, there's a load
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: of little crabs around, a lot of light crabs, all
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: that kind of stuff they've shed out. You know, there
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: could be more than half of those crabs could be
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: small or you know, we gotta squeeze every one of
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: them to check the grate on them.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: So like we gray crabs by the density of their shell,
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: which indicates how much meat is inside of them, and
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: that is from when they shed out.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the denser the crab, the more meat, right generally, yeah, yeah,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: why is that? Like I see that with dungeon ass
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: Like m hmmm. I don't know, if you're familiar with
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: that crab.
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I've seen them.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: So when you get one, it's soft. Yeah, it's just
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: water inside there.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: Why is that.
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: It's because they ship when they shit, you know, so
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: they'll go to slough their shell obviously have extra skeleton, right,
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: They can't grow their skeleton, so they have to shed
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: out of it, so they grow a larger skeleton inside
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: their shell, and then they'll back out of the back
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: of their shell and be a soft crab. But it
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: takes them a little while to get that new shell hard,
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: so they kind of fill it out full of water
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: inside of them, and then all their energy is going
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: to getting that shell hard as fast as they can
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: then to be able to defend themselves, you know. So
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: they're absorbing like calcium through the water and all that
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: kind of stuff to get their shells harder. A lot
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: of times we'll find light crabs on shell bottom, hard
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: bottom because they're hanging out on the oyster beds and
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: things like that, picking up the shells, you know, trying
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: to get right to be hard enough to defend themselves.
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: And then after they do that, then they'll start to
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: fill their their insides out, you know what I mean.
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: It's like all their energy is going.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: To then they'll starting impacting on an actual meat. Right.
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: But you'll notice like female blue crabs, I don't know
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: if it is the same with dungeness, but female blue
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: crabs will get their shells harder, like twice as fast
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: as a male. Because the only time a female crab
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: is gonna shed. A female blue crab is gonna shed
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: or is uh yeah, it's gonna shed is when they
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: shed from an immature female to a mature female. And
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: then that's the only one time they're gonna mate in
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: their whole life is when they are a mature female
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: soft crab. They're gonna do it one time, but then
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: after that they're like their shells.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: No, that's when they mate. That's the one time they
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: make one.
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: Time they mate. So when they're an immature female, we
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: called them a sally, right, and so it'll be a
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: little crab like you know, maybe that big, and they
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: have a pyramid shaped apron, and you can tell that
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: that immature female is gonna shed into a mature female
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: because their apron will get like a purple pink hue.
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: So that's when the that's basically when they're in heat. Right,
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: So the big dominant male crabs will go and we
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: call them doublers. They'll double up on these little sallies
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: and carry them around on their belly for like a
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: couple of weeks and defend them.
• 20:12
  Speaker 5: And then all the big crabs are fighting with each other, and.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: That crab grabs onto that girl crab toats her around
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: a couple of weeks fighting off other guys, yep, and
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: she just she kind of goes along with it.
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, she's just happy to be involved.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: I think, you know, defend man. Yeah.
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Is that common just across crabness or is that like
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: a blue crab deal.
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: I don't I'll be honest, I'm not real familiar with
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: anything blue crab. Yeah, it's pretty dialed on the blue crabs.
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: But besides that, I'm not.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: Really toats her around yep. Yeah, he'll tote her around.
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: Basically like I said, with them, Yeah, yep, but don't
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: like the crab. I don't know how it works, but
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: I'm sure it's similar with animals, like they're I think
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: that Sally is giving off something that you know, indicates
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: that she's in heat, right, Like we look at her
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: fins to tell a peeler crab like that. We'll look
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: at their inside second swim fin and they'll have a
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: white line at first we called a white sign, will
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: go to orange.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: And then red. You know.
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: Once they're red, we say they're rank so, which means
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: they're gonna shed the next day or two. Okay, that's
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: how we tell a peeler on the boat which will
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: shed the salt crab.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: The moment is a peeler good or bad for you?
• 21:24
  Speaker 5: A peeler's good for me, So you're allowed to keep.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: You're allowed to keep a female Yeah that hasn't bred yet, yeah, okay, yeah.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: Just generally all year long.
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, the size changes. It starts at three inches across
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: the top of the carapace, and then at July sixteenth,
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: he goes to three and a quarter inches, I believe,
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: for three and a half inches across for the for
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: the sally you know, for I mean for a peeler. Yeah,
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: normal blue crab starts at five inches, goes to five
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: and a quarter for keep.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: Okay, so that crabs coming up getting bigger, bigger, bigger,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: and then she gets where she's gonna molt or shed,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: and then she's gonna get the guys gonna carry around
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: breeder and then she's gonna turn into like then she's
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: gonna breed.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: Produce eggs. Yeah, and then she's gonna live for how
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: long after that?
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: I I don't really know, but she just is hanging
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: out and is never gonna have babies again.
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: No, no, no, she'll so she'll carry you know, she'll carry
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: it around with her the whole time after they've bred,
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: you know, for the rest of her life.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: Oh, she like has like delayed implantations. Yeah.
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, so they that's blow.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: In my mind.
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: Okay, Yeah, it's a common misconception that she fertilized one time. Yeah,
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: and then she will she's juice.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: Is that juice is her for yeah? Yeah, the rest
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: of her life?
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: Yep, yep, And so she'll sponge up. I've always heard
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: six to eight times, you know, but who knows.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: I don't really know how old is the old crab?
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: I mean I don't. I mean, I don't really know
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: for sure, but I would I think they say in
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: old crabs like four years old, you know. But the
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: thing that usually kills a crab besides getting caught is
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: they go to shed and they can't ship. They don't
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: have the energy.
• 23:16
  Speaker 5: So like male crabs just keep getting bigger, bigger, bigger.
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: But a female crab, since they only shed from an
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: immature to a mature female one time. Once she's a
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: mature female, she'll never shed again. Okay, so she'll never grow.
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: So if she's that big, is a mature female, she'll
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: stay that big.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: If she's that she'll stay that big. Yeah.
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And then they'll sponge up, so they get like
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: I'm sure you've seen them before, like when.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: You pull the tail thing back and there's like eggs
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: and air. What do you mean.
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, so like on a blue crab, her apron
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: right on the bottom, she'll get this big sponge crabs.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I keep like, I keep picturing dungeies. That's just
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: kind of the crab by massive. Yeah, I keep picturing dungees.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: But I know what you're talking about.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, So they'll get like a big egg sponge. Say
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: it's you know, two to eight million eggs per sponge.
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: When they're really bright orange they're new, she'll carry them
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: around for like two weeks. As time goes on, they'll
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: get darker in color, and by the time they drop off,
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: their like real dark like brown, almost black. They'll drop
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: off as larvae and then they kind of float around
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: to the tide. And then those larvae are going to
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: like change kind of like their form, like like twenty
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: there's almost like twenty different stages before they even start
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: to look like a blue crab, right, And then once
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: they start to look like a blue crab, then they're
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: shedding once a week, you know, once every two weeks whatever,
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: you know, just until they get to a certain size,
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: like maybe half the size of your thumb something like that.
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: And then you know they're shedding less and less frequently
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: as they get older, but they're trying to like it's
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: like it's a it's a sprint to get as big
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: as you can so you don't get eaten, right, you
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: know what I mean. And then once they get to
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: a certain size, then they're a little safer and they're
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: only gonna shed a few times a year.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: So when you're what's the most valuable one you can catch?
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: And I got another question for you, What the hell's this? Like,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: I know what a soft shell is. He just explained it.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: But that's good for you or bad for you. That's
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: gotta be good for you, right.
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, So soft shells are good for us. You know,
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: I can sell them for a bunch of money individually.
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: They're like a delicacy, you know where we're at. But
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: the best soft shell crabs I get are crabs that
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: I catch as a peeler and then I put into
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: tanks and then I monitor the tanks and then pull
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: them out as a as like a perfect soft crab
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: because they're.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: A little bit like a semi aquaculture deal.
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah something like that.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 25:41
  Speaker 4: So I got like tanks and all that where I
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: I bring them in and put them in the tank
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: and then you know, check on them like every couple
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: of hours, because.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: Once every couple of hours.
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah, man, like once a crab sheds, uh, you know,
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: only have like two hours to get it before it's
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: you know, too hard to be a soft crab, too
• 25:59
  Speaker 4: soft to be a hard crab.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: It's ours.
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, Oh yeah, dude. Like when we get these
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: peeler runs, we're up all night, you know, we're up
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: checking tanks.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: I got like.
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: Cameras in my shedding tanks and all so I can
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: see when they're shedding and all that stuff.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Wait, yeah, dude, I mean it's they're not like synchronized though,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: is there a way to synchronize them.
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: They're not necessarily synchronized, but I've noticed that there is
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: definitely cycles where they will all shed at one time.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: It's kind of weird, and I don't know exactly what
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: it is.
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: You know, a lot of people claim moon phase, a
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: lot of people claim tied all this kind of stuff.
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: But you know, they're in an isolated tank. You know,
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: it's not like I'm keeping them in a live box.
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: They're in an isolated tank, and they're still somehow kind
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: of all in the same cycle and a lot in
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: a lot of ways. It's kind of weird, Like I
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: don't even know what they can man for like, yeah,
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: every two hours?
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: Are you serious? Yeah?
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: Man?
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: How many those how many of those things? Unless let's
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: just I don't want to ask you question, like like
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: how much is in bank account?
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: But how many those things you can how many putting
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: in a tank at a time.
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: I mean I just built new tanks this year, but
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: I mean I can put a couple of hundred in
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: a tank.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: So I usually have different tanks and as they're in
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: different stages of shedding, I will move them into different
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: tanks because they will kill each other, you know. So
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: if you have one that's too remember house at a
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: white sign earlier. It's got that white line, so you
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: know that crab still got a couple of days until
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: it sheds. But especially the immature females are the meanest.
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: Like if you have them in a tank as a
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: white sign, she's too early with a bunch of males
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: that are going to shed, she'll just go around and
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: kill them all, you know, eat thember kill them. They
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: just kill them. I don't, they don't. They don't eat them.
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: They just kill them. They don't really eat when they're
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: going to shed. Like we know people always like, what
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: do you feed them in the tanks. We don't feed
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: them anything. They well, I've put different stuff in there
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: just to see if they'll eat it, and they never do.
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: The only thing they'll kill and eat is each other sometimes.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: So if you when you go in and get a
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: when you go into when you're out in that neck
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: of the world and you go into and you see
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: in a restaurant soft shell crab, there's a better chance
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: that some dude halfs that thing and a monitored that
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: thing in a tank, yeah, and plucked it at just
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: the right moment then there is that you caught it
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: in a pot.
• 28:15
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean we do catch them in the pots, but.
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: You know, a lot of times they're pretty beat up,
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: you know, and they don't make it too you know,
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: be in a live soft crab or something like that.
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: A lot of times those ones will go to fit
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: either fish bait or be cleaned and frozen, you know,
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: sold as a frozen soft crab.
• 28:33
  Speaker 5: God because you know, you pull up a pot and
• 28:36
  Speaker 5: you got one soft.
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: We try to be really careful with them, you know,
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: like if I pull a pot, you know, I can
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: usually tell which ones, you know, if there's a soft
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: crab and there as soon as it breaks the surface,
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: and if there is.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm going to open up the pot.
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: I'm going to try to you know, jimmy the other
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: crabs around and reach up in there and try to
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: get her out of there, you know, without her getting
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: tore up, because that pot is the surface and it's
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: game on. All them crabs are just locked onto each
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: other and they're.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: You know, oh yeah, so like they don't know what's
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: going on.
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: They're all, yeah, they just get stressed and they're all
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: fighting each other. So but like they see a soft
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: crab in there, and they're just you know what I mean,
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: it's like, oh no, they just killed ten bucks. It's
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: a bummer.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: So tell me, like, because this is a lot of
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: this is new to me, walk through.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: The different crabs.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: You Okay, so there's there's just there's gotta be somewhere
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: in here.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: We'll start with this. There's like the big old male,
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: hard ass shell that's like a crab.
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you mean like they're kind of the different grades. Yeah, yeah,
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: all right, So on my boat, we're calling crabs like
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: shorting them. We call it calling into we got extra
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: larch males, right, and then we have.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: Them and that'd be like what like if you go
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: to if you're steaming crabs, dumping them out on the table,
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: and everybody's picking crabs and eating them, that's who they're eating.
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: Well, if you got you know, if you just spent
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: a bunch of money, if you spent one hundred and
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: fiftywo hundred hours, it.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: Does Okay, Yeah, that's the high grade.
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: That's the highest grade crab.
• 30:03
  Speaker 5: It's like, uh, you know the xls and the.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: Jumbos, how big are they point to point those you know.
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: I'll call mine at like six and three quarter inches big.
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: That's big, you know.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: And and that's an expensive high dollar.
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: But you know, we don't we're not catching much of those.
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: So like, for instance, we might catch you know, like
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: the other day we have thirty bushel of crabs. Two
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: bushel of those were exls.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: Okay, so that's one grade.
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's like top tier.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: That's what I'm looking for.
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: You know. I try to take as good a care
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: of them as I possibly do.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: It makes you most happy, yeah, exactly.
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: I love seeing a big, nice, big flat crab come
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: with them up in the pot, and then we have
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: our number ones.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: Monkey back up one see. Yeah, what's that big ass
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: crab worth?
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: I sew them at my place live a hundred bucks
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: a dozen oka, and I could get more. I mean
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: in the times of the year when we have like
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: the really big giant crabs, like you just see them,
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: You're like, holy smokes, that's a giant.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: I get one hundred fifty bucks a dozen, but we
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: might get two dozen a day.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: People are buying those to throw down like on a
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: nice yeah party dinner kind of thing like that.
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: At you know, people are like one hundred and.
• 31:11
  Speaker 5: Fifty bucks A doesnen that's insane.
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: You know what.
• 31:13
  Speaker 5: I've never been stuck with one single time one hundred.
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: And fifty dollars dozen crabs, man like the first to go.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: I mean, people line up to go, try to pay
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: one hundred fifty bucks. But they comment on it.
• 31:23
  Speaker 5: Yeah, oh yeah, everybody's got something to say about it.
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: And it's kind of funny because like there's some people
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: that are just like in a position to do that,
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: and there's other people that like it's almost like Maryland Brad.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: It's almost like bragging, right, people.
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: Like I paid one hundred and fifty bucks. You know
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: these I paid one hundred fifty bucks. It does for
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: these ones, you know what I mean, I knew a
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: guy to get.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: Crabs like, so it's expensive, but they sell.
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, like you can't go into a restaurant
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: and get crabs that are that great, even if you're
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: paying more.
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: Like those are the crabs.
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: We call them the the Noah Guy crabs, you know,
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: because really you got to know a guy to get
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: crabs like that, you know what I mean. Okay, So
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: then we have our Number ones, which is like the
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: primary that's the biomass I want to target is your
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: number ones and that is your we call them at
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: five and three quarters to six and three quarters.
• 32:10
  Speaker 5: But that's your like market sized crab.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: Huh.
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: That's what I'm shooting for is to get the most
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: amount of those the bread and butter. That's the bread
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: and butter crab. That's I got good margins on all
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: those crabs. They live pretty good and they fill up baskets,
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: you know. There, that's the large you know, and that's
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: the crabs that you're probably going to see at a
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: crab feast or something if it's just your buddies, you know. Yeah,
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: and then the next tier would bember and those are
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: going for how much it does? I think right now
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: I'm at seventy dollars a dozen on them, and like
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: four hundred bucks a bushel, which is six dozen.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: Crabs hundred bucks of bushel.
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it costs a lot to catch the well.
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: No, I'm not. I'm not hacking on the market.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: Just one time we went out we had I don't
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: know how many got we had enough guys in the
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: boat that we.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: Went out with one of them onlines.
• 33:01
  Speaker 5: Is that what you're when you were filmed sick in
• 33:03
  Speaker 5: your hunt?
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: I think I said we had like a bushel. Yeah
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: it was cool. Yeah, yeah, it was no joke. I mean,
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: but pull up a bushel. Yeah.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: So that's four hundred bucks for the crabs. Yeah, in
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: today's price as well.
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah for yeah, for me, I mean a lot of
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: places are a lot more and some places are cheaper.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, got it.
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: I never claim to have the cheapest crabs.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: And those go to Are you you have restaurant clients?
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: No, not anymore. I I used to.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: That's all.
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: I sell all my stuff direct to consumer now, but
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: that's very uncommon, I know.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: But within that isn't that direct consumer? There's no like,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: there's no consumer for you. That just happens to like,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: use some crab in a restaurant. It's like people taking
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: it home to eat it.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: You know, they can do whatever they want with them.
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: But they're priced out of being middlemanned. And that's almost
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: a little bit of that's on purpose, you know what
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: I mean. So it's at a price point where you're
• 33:58
  Speaker 4: not going to have somebody. If somebody were to be
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: buying those crabs for a restaurant, there would be no margin. Differently, Yeah,
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: you know, I've had people that have restaurants or something
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: like that, and they'll come and pay whatever because they
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: you know, they want to be like, oh yeah, we
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: got crabs from the crab guy, you know what I mean,
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: on YouTube or whatever.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: Just yeah, so the way like just the you've developed
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: a certain market, you serve a certain clientele, or you're
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: just out of the restaurant business and you're selling.
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: Two people serving food to their friends and families.
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yep, yep. And you know I used to
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: sell to restaurants and things like that, but once you
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: go to selling your own crabs, you almost get blacklisted
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: in a way, you know what I mean. So you know,
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: I had been selling to restaurants and purveyors for like
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: seven years, you know, and I'd built good reputation. You
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: have a lot of contact with them exactly. So you
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: go to sell your own and they don't want to
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: buy from you because, yeah, your competition, but also they're
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: always going to assume that you're going to be skimming
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: the better grade off. That's really the big thing, you
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: know what I mean, which like I truthfully never did
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: because I was, like, you know, I was in a
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: position when I started where like there was no market
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: for me, so I had to like be you know,
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: I had no family in market. I had you know,
• 35:20
  Speaker 4: I had nothing, so I had to like have a
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: little bit of an edge on the other guys. So
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: like I always I never did that, and I always
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: sold like you know, I was like a tryhard I
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: was trying to sell like a better product than the
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: other guys, which I know now like kind.
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: Of screws up the market status quo, you know what
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: I mean.
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: But also at the times, like I did what I
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: had to do to get a foot in. But yeah,
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: I mean I sell everything direct to consumer now, which
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: is I say, it's like three times the money for
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: five times the work, you know, I mean, cause you're
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: it used to be I'd catch crabs and you drop
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: them off to the done. Yeah, yeah, you know, I'd
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: be driving around the truck for two three hours, you know,
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: after work.
• 35:59
  Speaker 5: But it's like I didn't have to worry about it.
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: I tacked up a you know, a ticket, I picked
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: up a check on Monday, you know, and we we're
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: just throwing crabs in the baskets.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: The more they die, the more they buy, right, you
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: know what I mean.
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: But now I'm like, oh my gosh, like we got
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: you know, like every crab goes in the basket, up right.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: I mean we've always tried to do that.
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, ye, we've always tried to you know, take good
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: care of the product obviously, but you know, it's just
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: kind of the joke. It's like now I'm like, now
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: I catch them on a Monday or Tuesday, and I'm like,
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: all right, now, I got to keep this thing alive
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: till Saturday. We're only open two days you're at the
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: retail spot.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: So okay, So we got the XLS is that what
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: you call the YEP excels?
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: And you got the bread and Butter crab.
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: Number one, my favorite crab, and then we got number twos,
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: which are going to be your smaller crab.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: And this doesn't matter like these are at this point.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: These are all males, Yes, all males.
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: And that's gonna be like, well before the sixteenth five
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: inch crab to five and three quarter inch crab.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: You just know it when you're looking at it, you're
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: not putting.
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: The most part, for the most part. I mean we
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: do have sticks. Obviously, we're putting them to the stick
• 37:02
  Speaker 4: and all when we got to, but you know, for
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: the most part, I mean I've seen enough crabs, I
• 37:08
  Speaker 4: can pretty much just call them by eye. So we
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: got number two's. Those are gonna be our smaller crabs.
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: But so remember number two's number ones in excels. These
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: are all crabs that are better grade. They're all hard, okay,
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: So like we squeeze them, shells are hard. Crabs will
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: meat and then we'll have light crabs. We call them
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: trash crabs in the industry. Another grade, which is what
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: we call a straight call, which means, if it's legal,
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: it goes in the same basket. All the same sizes
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: get mixed right on a straight call. But it's going
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: to be we call them lights when we sell them.
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: In the industry, we call them trash crabs. So it'll
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: be a straight call trash crab, which is thesed. We
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: need a chart.
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: It's because it's a it's a size issue.
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: Is something different, it's something different.
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: So it's when you squeeze.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: Them, can be a trash crab.
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's when we squeeze him, right, And so they've
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: we can and we can tell that they've shed, but
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: they haven't yet filled their new shell out.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah. But so even if he was.
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: If he's eight inches, he's going in the light basket.
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: If he's five and a quarter, he's going in the
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: same basket.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: I got you. That's then they're all straight same value.
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: It's just a per pound or whatever.
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: Dollar a crab.
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: Baby, Oh that's how that goes.
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: Ye yeah, yeah, so we don't Okay, so I don't
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: keep a lot of lights. Usually you pitch.
• 38:29
  Speaker 5: Him back, yeah, which is very uncommon.
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: But also it's because I don't have I'm my own
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: market for lights, you know what I mean. And I
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: try to you know, I try to keep the value
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: of the product up. And I have some customers that
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: prefer light crabs. Right, They're easy to pick, they're super cheap.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: You're great for.
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: Kids and things like that. But my kind of outlook
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: on it is like, you can only kill a crab
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: one time, right, sure, and I would much rather throw
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: that crab back and give him a chance to kill
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: him when he's worth.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: Let them be all, yeah.
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: Ten dollars crab instead of a dollar crab.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: But if I came to you begging for a basket lights,
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: you'd oblige me.
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean, we they don't live real good
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: to walk in either, so we'll usually keep like two
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: bushel on a Friday, just because I have some regulars
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: that like they prefer those crafts.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: So no one you're gonna sell over the weekend. On
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: a Friday, you'd keep something.
• 39:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'd keep a couple, but I you know, I'm
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: not keeping I ain't gonna keep ten bushel of them
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: on a Monday. You're just gonna kill him for nothing.
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: You know, there's no sense in killing him for no reason.
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: And even like taking them to a picking house or
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: something like that. I mean, what are you gonna unload
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: him for, you know nothing, twenty dollars fifteen twenty dollars
• 39:40
  Speaker 4: for a bushel of crabs. I mean, it seemed to
• 39:43
  Speaker 4: me it's a little counterintuitive when you try to, you know,
• 39:47
  Speaker 4: catch themselves.
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: If you let two of them, if you let that,
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: whole bush will go.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and two of them, two or three of them
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: come back to you as ones seles or whatever.
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was worth it.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: It was your money, right, Okay. So that's another grade.
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: And then we got females, and then we sort females
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: just into mediums and largest. We don't get a ton
• 40:08
  Speaker 4: of them, little tiny mature females. You can only keep
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: a female if it's a mature female, and there's no
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: size limit across the carapace, you know, no point to
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: point limit size on a female crab. It's just if
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: it's a mature female crab, you can take it.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: So not everybody, but overboard.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: There's the mesh on the pot such that it's it's
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: already sorting itself.
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: So in a lot of ways, yes, So crabs, male
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: crabs under five inches are going overboard most of the time.
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: Lights are going overboard. Immature females that are not peelers
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: are going overboard, although that's kind of uncommon any light females.
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: We don't keep any light females because remember how I
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: said the females, their shells get harder twice as fast,
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: but they're twice as empty inside, you know. But yes,
• 40:59
  Speaker 4: in pots, I have different mesh size wire yeah. Uh.
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: And that does a lot of the calling forests.
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: And then we also have call rings, which are plastic
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: rings in the sides of the pots.
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: And so I have different size call rings that I
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: open up at different times of the year, you know
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: what I mean when, because it like right now there
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: we have that mail shed early this year, and so
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: there's just a load of crabs. But there's a load
• 41:26
  Speaker 4: of these cookie cutter like four and three quarter and
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: five to five and a half inch little mails and
• 41:33
  Speaker 4: so I have you know that's a legal crab, right,
• 41:35
  Speaker 4: you know, five and a half inch crab, a legal crab.
• 41:37
  Speaker 4: But I don't want to dump thirty of those in
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: the box, and they have to go through thirty of
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: them each pot. You know, it's just it's going to
• 41:42
  Speaker 4: slow already down. You're getting bad up, so you use
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: the right rings. Yet I put bigger rings in there
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: so i'll you know, I can let a legal crab out,
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: but I'm not I'm not really interested in catching two.
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: So I'd rather catch a pot with three ones than
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: a pot with ten twos. You know, any day, it's
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: less work to call through them. You know, they're not
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: getting pinched up. Like little crabs will kill big crabs
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: in the pot. And once little crabs go in, big
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: crabs don't want to go in there, you know what
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: I mean.
• 42:09
  Speaker 5: Like big crabs trap big crabs. Little trap little.
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: Crabs trap little crabs, and females kill everything. They they'll
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: they don't trap any males, yeah, mature females. They usually
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: run together in a pack, so you'll pull pot's got thirty.
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: Of them, which they killing males.
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: Male goes in there, he's dead, dude, They're they're gonna
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: tear him up.
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: Gole man. You'd like to ask him why they're doing it.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: Competition or something.
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: I don't know, man, they're just vicious. They're they're unassuming,
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: you know what I mean. I think they lure them
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: in there and then kill them. The kind of been dead,
• 42:41
  Speaker 4: I guess there or something. I don't know, daddy issues,
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: I guess.
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: So these dudes, like does it work for you?
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: Do you got the same guys all the time or
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: is it just like a are they like freelance camera guys?
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: You just go grab one or grab one and.
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: A lot of ways they're like freelance camera guys. A
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: lot of times they're like freelance camera guys. But like
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: right now, I'm very fortunate to have a good crew,
• 43:04
  Speaker 4: which you know, some of these guys have been with
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: me for a while, multiple years. That's pretty uncommon in
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: a lot of ways. You know, I've done a lot
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: of years where you were just trying to get anybody
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: that'll show just warm bodies, you know, and it's it's
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: it's honest as it's getting a lot of guys out
• 43:22
  Speaker 4: of the industry. Is that the extreme lack of help
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: the rising cost of operation. But you know, it's just
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: it's a pain to try to train a new guy.
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: You know, you got your way, you like it, and
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: they did it on another boat.
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: That's yeah, but there's only one way to do it's
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: the way, you know what I mean, on my boat
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: at least. So I've put a lot of time into
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: trying to dial the system, you know, and make basically
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: the system a like almost like an assembly line, right
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: with interchangeable parts is, you know, and people are the parts.
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: So I try to make every job on the boat,
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: every step something that basically a monkey could do if
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: he'd be you know what I mean, skilled guy.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: And then all the guys learn the different roles and
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: so if you jump into blank roll or whatever, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: So they kind of work their way up the totem pole.
• 44:15
  Speaker 4: They're going to start as usually a stacker, so they're
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: going to be pulling the pots out of that hot
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: water tank, stacking them three high, pushing them to the
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: back of the boat.
• 44:23
  Speaker 5: It's kind of the low man on the totem pole job.
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: And then I would say, depending on the boat in
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: the area, your second guy is either going to be
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: your call man, you know, the guy that's sorting crabs,
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: or your shaker. For me, like in the upper Bay,
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: it's always been a shaker, but like you go to
• 44:42
  Speaker 4: other areas and they regard their second mate or their
• 44:45
  Speaker 4: first mate as their caller, you know, because they're in
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: charge of their right.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: Like then yeah, I don't know, based on based on
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: me knowing nothing, I would think that that would be
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: like the right that'd be the important job.
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it is, you you know, And when I sold
• 45:01
  Speaker 4: the market, it was a more important to me. It
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: was more important to have a more skilled guy on.
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: There because you were giving him a second look.
• 45:09
  Speaker 4: Right, But now you know I have I can afford
• 45:12
  Speaker 4: a little bit of buffer in that area because you know,
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: we're the only ones touching the crabs and they're going
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: to call them on the boat, and then my guys
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: at the crabs stand are also gonna as well, exactly,
• 45:23
  Speaker 4: And so that'll afford me some days. If I got
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: a mix mixed mass crew or you know, something like that,
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: I know, well maybe I could pull you know, if
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: we got to make up some time. Maybe I could
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: pull my guy off the call box, put him on
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: the rail to shake, you know, put a guy that
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: maybe doesn't know quite as much on there to just
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: to get through them. And then you know, I'll just
• 45:40
  Speaker 4: let the guys of the stand no, you know, I'll
• 45:43
  Speaker 4: tag them and say, you know, just pay attention when
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: you go through these particular attention to make sure grades
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: right on him.
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: What's the average age of a crew guy in the
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: in the industry, In the industry, I don't know, man.
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: I mean, you'll have you got a lot of high
• 45:58
  Speaker 4: school kids, college age kids. That's what I have mostly.
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: But then also there's some straight lifers we call them,
• 46:06
  Speaker 4: you know what I mean, guys that are you know,
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: they look like they're one hundred, but they're probably like
• 46:10
  Speaker 4: thirty five. Well maybe you someday, yeah, probaly, I mean,
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: I'm definitely a lifer. But I mean, you know, for
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: the crew, it tends to attract not all the time,
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: but you know, it is common that it attracts a
• 46:23
  Speaker 4: certain crowd of folks. Yeah, and maybe don't already have
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: a job, you know, I mean, maybe they got more
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: toes and teeth a lot of times they may have
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: a habit that you know, requires them to make quick
• 46:36
  Speaker 4: money with physical labor, you know what I mean. It
• 46:39
  Speaker 4: doesn't require bringing your own equipment except yourself.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: You know, because you because you allow so much visibility
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: through through video and other stuff, you lost so much
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: visibility into your how you get your.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: Product and sell your product.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, do your crew guys come to you.
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: Because they want a job? Yeah, they do. And it's
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: kind of funny because like I used to have endless
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: problems with getting crew. Now I have endless amounts of
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: people that want to help. But as the stuff online
• 47:14
  Speaker 4: has grown, I keep the circle a lot tighter. You
• 47:18
  Speaker 4: ain't getting a job on the boat because mostly just
• 47:21
  Speaker 4: some guy that wants to say he did it, or
• 47:23
  Speaker 4: some guy that wants to you know, I'll almost paranoid,
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: like you know, they're they're gonna want to try to
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: sue you or something. You know, Like, yeah, I'm very guarded.
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: So like, if you want a job on the boat,
• 47:35
  Speaker 4: I either have to be real desperate, or you gotta
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: know somebody that's already helping me or something like that.
• 47:40
  Speaker 4: I do a fair amount of vetting, you know, just
• 47:43
  Speaker 4: because you know that or at some kid that just
• 47:46
  Speaker 4: wants to put it all over snapchat story that.
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: He and he's not gonna be any good anyway.
• 47:51
  Speaker 4: So I try to find seek out crew members that
• 47:54
  Speaker 4: are like not interested in what, you know, not not
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: interested in the in video and whatever else.
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: They're not trying to be like a crab exactly.
• 48:02
  Speaker 4: They're there for the income, not the outcome, you know.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, well, let's talk about the infrastructure minute. So
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: you said you got to you got a trout line
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: boat that.
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: You keep for crew guys to use or whatever. Yeah,
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: you got your main you got you got one main boat.
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah we're building another one right now, but yes, one
• 48:19
  Speaker 4: main one that we're running all.
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: Them tanks, retail location.
• 48:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know, fifteen hundred crab pots sitting in
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: my front yard.
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: You're not here.
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: So that's what I'm saying, Like it's got to be
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know I'm getting. I mean, like
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: we're for capital investment.
• 48:37
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it ain't worth it in a lot of ways.
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: You got for capital investment?
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: Is it more or less than buying like a sweet
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: house in your town?
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: I mean it would be.
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: Probably not everybody's rigs created equal, But I mean we
• 48:54
  Speaker 4: could just go through some kind of numbers on on,
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: you know, in terms of equipment. So you know, I
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: got a commercial nine hundred pot license.
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you gotta buy that thing.
• 49:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I bought mine a lot cheaper because it was
• 49:07
  Speaker 4: a long time ago. But I mean now, I would
• 49:09
  Speaker 4: say that license is probably worth thirty thousand dollars. And
• 49:12
  Speaker 4: then you got to pay two thousand bucks a year
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: to hold it to the state. So we got like
• 49:16
  Speaker 4: thirty grand there. And then you know, if you were
• 49:19
  Speaker 4: like my boat, it's not worth a load of money.
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: The new boat I'm building is you know, the new
• 49:26
  Speaker 4: boat that I'm building that I probably will never hopefully
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: have to build another one. By the time it's all
• 49:31
  Speaker 4: said and done, it'll be like quarter million bucks.
• 49:35
  Speaker 5: Crab pots fifty two dollars apiece finished out.
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: So I got fifteen hundred of those. I have another
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: commercial license, a three hundred pot license that I hold,
• 49:44
  Speaker 4: so that one's probably worth ten thousand bucks fifteen dollars.
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: You hold it now.
• 49:49
  Speaker 4: We will run them both on the boat sometimes when
• 49:51
  Speaker 4: there's limits, because you can keep two limits with two licensees.
• 49:56
  Speaker 4: You know, we got a retail location that I own,
• 49:59
  Speaker 4: you know, commercial property that I owned with a little
• 50:02
  Speaker 4: stand on it. We got refrigerator trailers, we got trucks,
• 50:08
  Speaker 4: you know, boats, there's a lot of there's a lot
• 50:11
  Speaker 4: of infrastructure.
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: But it's stuff you just accumulated though.
• 50:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's mostly stuff that I built out of whatever
• 50:17
  Speaker 4: was around, you know, because the thing is with crab
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: and it's like the margins ain't there too to go
• 50:23
  Speaker 4: and you know, buy all the stuff and just go.
• 50:27
  Speaker 5: You'd like it would take you forever to the money backs.
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: So you get something, you make a little money used
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: to buy parts, yeah, come assembled together, and then all
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: these years later, what like twelve years later or something.
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you sit back, you're like.
• 50:39
  Speaker 4: Damn, yeah, you got the whole deal. But it's like
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: it's because you know it one day and to start
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: to I mean that wouldn't never make any sense, yeah, exactly.
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: So it's like and see, and that's another reasons generational.
• 50:50
  Speaker 4: A lot of times it's because these guys, you know,
• 50:53
  Speaker 4: the sun gets into it and he doesn't have to
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: go buy a one hundred thousand dollars boat and he
• 50:57
  Speaker 4: doesn't have to buy a license, you know, yeah, or
• 50:59
  Speaker 4: if he does, you know, know, they have a lot
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: of that back end infrastructure. They have markets already in line.
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: You know, some guys there is some guys out there
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: fighting a good fight and just kind of build it out.
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: But it's very uncommon these days just because it's such
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: a grind, like you have to reinvest every bit of capital,
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: every bit of work. You know, you have to make
• 51:16
  Speaker 4: up for your deficit with just basically unpaid labor of yourself.
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a cattle ranching in the West where you
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: have this like diminishing number of generational ranching families. Yeah,
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: but there's a romance to having a ranch. So now
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: people make money in tech, they make money in the oil. Yeah,
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: they make money. Oh really.
• 51:37
  Speaker 5: Yeah, they're like, oh, I want to retire and go crabbing.
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, that's the thing in crabbing, the retire
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: from And then they're like, buy a ranch.
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, identify as a rancher.
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: But the ranch doesn't make money and they made their
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: money elsewhere, but they like get to pretend to be
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: a rancher. I was gonna say, in crabbing, there's there's
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: that's not a relaxing occupation people.
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but there's a misconception. People people like romanticized, you know. Yeah,
• 52:06
  Speaker 4: And I'm like, dude, you're lucky to you know, crabbers
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: don't retire like you're lucky to retire as you know
• 52:11
  Speaker 4: from crabb and they die. Oh yeah, no, they think,
• 52:14
  Speaker 4: you know, they think of the pictures of the sunsets
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: and the you know, the sound of the engines going out.
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: They're romanticized.
• 52:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And I mean like, meanwhile, I'm like half those
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: people you've seen, they're they're freaking high, you know what
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: I mean, Like they're going out to get their butt kicked,
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: you know what i mean.
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: Seriously, I had no idea people to think that that
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: would be like a like a like a quaint occupation.
• 52:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's kind of it's like there's not many
• 52:37
  Speaker 4: guys getting into it and a lot of the guys
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: getting into it or like guys like that.
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: Last No, I we actually.
• 52:45
  Speaker 4: Don't mind it because I'm like, they go out and
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: buy a bunch of nice stuff. You know, they're buying
• 52:48
  Speaker 4: all new pots, they're paying whatever, they're just writing checks
• 52:50
  Speaker 4: for it. And we always kind of jokeer like keep
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: an eye on that one because two years we're buying
• 52:55
  Speaker 4: our I'm a biasorraic I promise, you know, we're like
• 52:58
  Speaker 4: making vets for like two years. Boat could be mine,
• 53:01
  Speaker 4: you know what I mean. I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm
• 53:02
  Speaker 4: gonna go get his number because he's gonna need that
• 53:05
  Speaker 4: license and exactly half because they're gonna be like this
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: is a hot disaster. You know. I'm best way to
• 53:15
  Speaker 4: you know, become a millionaire crab in store with two
• 53:18
  Speaker 4: million you know what I mean, star with two million bucks,
• 53:21
  Speaker 4: you can be one millionaire crabber, you know what I mean.
• 53:24
  Speaker 4: Uh yeah, it's kind of it's interesting, like it's a
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: bunch of you know, not everybody, but it's a lot
• 53:29
  Speaker 4: of you know, rich kids or you know, guys that
• 53:33
  Speaker 4: think they're.
• 53:33
  Speaker 5: Gonna retire and get into crabbing.
• 53:36
  Speaker 4: And it's just funny to watch because it's like they
• 53:38
  Speaker 4: go in there and they're all like, oh yeah, not
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: gonna let any push me around. I'm gonna be the guy.
• 53:42
  Speaker 4: And it's like, all right, buddy, good luck.
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: You gotta just like you gotta just be the kind
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: of person that could just work though.
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: Dude, Yeah, you gotta.
• 53:51
  Speaker 5: I'm telling you, man, you gotta be a little stubborn
• 53:54
  Speaker 5: like you know it.
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: Literally. That's why I didn't mind the muskie fishing yesterday
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: because I was like, I'm literally I.
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: Make a living doing this, doing the same thing.
• 54:01
  Speaker 4: Over and over and over, expecting the expecting a different result.
• 54:05
  Speaker 5: Like literally the definition of insanity.
• 54:08
  Speaker 4: Is grabbing you know what I mean? Like you you'll
• 54:11
  Speaker 4: go crazy, like and I am a little crazy like
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: you just you gotta we joke, but you gotta be
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: a little nutty to you know. Ye just go do that.
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: But how long do you think you'll do it?
• 54:24
  Speaker 4: I'm really trying to set myself up to be able
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: to do it as long as I want to and
• 54:28
  Speaker 4: as long as my body will allow.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: But does it get like do you how do you thirty? Okay,
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: so let's jump like when you're forty? Yeah, are you
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: still on the boat every day?
• 54:41
  Speaker 4: That's my goal really, which is kind of.
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: The lot of guys out and then you're just then
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: you're just like the kind of dude sitting back like
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: with calculat.
• 54:49
  Speaker 4: Really I like doing it. I like just keep you
• 54:52
  Speaker 4: love doing it? Yeah, I love doing it. I Yeah,
• 54:56
  Speaker 4: I love you.
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: Don't aspire to you don't aspire to get off the
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: water because your system's so dialed and you got such
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: a good marketing apparatus.
• 55:05
  Speaker 4: My my goal is to not get off of the water.
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: Like my goal is to be able to do it.
• 55:12
  Speaker 4: But also, you know, I'd like to be in a
• 55:15
  Speaker 4: spot where, you know, if I have a family someday,
• 55:18
  Speaker 4: or you know, I have health issues or something. I'm married,
• 55:21
  Speaker 4: Oh you're married, Oh yeah, but no kids.
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: Not yet?
• 55:25
  Speaker 4: No, But I have things in place where like I
• 55:28
  Speaker 4: don't have to go out there if I don't necessarily
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: want to, or you know what I mean, Like just
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: in terms of like, you know, a lot of guys
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: there's no other option.
• 55:36
  Speaker 5: Man, Like they're they're they are literally dying out there.
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: They're in their sixties and seventies because they've never set
• 55:43
  Speaker 4: anything up on the back end, and or they just
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: really want to do it, you know. But a lot
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: of them like they they got no other option, man,
• 55:50
  Speaker 4: so they go until they can't. You know, a lot
• 55:52
  Speaker 4: of them have health issues and things like that. And
• 55:54
  Speaker 4: I've grown up being a younger guy, significantly younger guy
• 55:57
  Speaker 4: in the industry. I've grown up and seen a lot
• 55:59
  Speaker 4: of that. And I've seen a lot of these older
• 56:02
  Speaker 4: guys get sick and then getting hit hard spots because
• 56:05
  Speaker 4: they got nothing. They got no insurance, they got nothing else.
• 56:08
  Speaker 4: They can't go to work. You know, they suffer, their
• 56:10
  Speaker 4: family suffers. So like, my goal was always to get
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: it to a point where like I love the water,
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: I love being out there, I love crabbing. But if something,
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: you know, my body, I don't, you know, I don't
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: want to run my body into oblivion just to have
• 56:24
  Speaker 4: to pay my mortgage.
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: When'd your first run into your wife?
• 56:29
  Speaker 4: My wife is actually from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and I met
• 56:33
  Speaker 4: her because my mom and stepdad and moved to Lancaster
• 56:39
  Speaker 4: at the end of my junior or of high school.
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: They moved there and I was in eighteen, so I
• 56:42
  Speaker 4: had to move with them. I lived there in Cornfields
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: for a couple of months til I turned eighteen, and
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: then moved back to Maryland as soon as I could.
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: You met her when you were there.
• 56:51
  Speaker 4: She was the neighbor.
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: Okay, well she think of the whole crab and things.
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: She like it.
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: She likes it. Yeah, she go out on the boat
• 56:56
  Speaker 4: with you and stuff occasionally. Kind of funny because like
• 57:01
  Speaker 4: you know, when I met her when we were like seventeen,
• 57:04
  Speaker 4: I was like, yeah, I'm moving back to Maryland, like,
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: you know, I'm gonna go be a crabber.
• 57:08
  Speaker 5: And she's like, what the heck is that even me?
• 57:10
  Speaker 5: And then we ended up getting married like ten years later.
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: You know what. It was just like it wasn't part
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: of the program.
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: She was just like what yeah, yeah, yeah, no, dude.
• 57:17
  Speaker 4: It was a kind of a wrench in mind.
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: Well, she don't mind you being in that business.
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: No, no, she don't mind it, but you know, but
• 57:24
  Speaker 4: she don't mind it. But she also, you know, she
• 57:26
  Speaker 4: got into this understanding with an understanding that you're married
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: to it, you know what I mean, Like you marry me,
• 57:31
  Speaker 4: you marry the life.
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, you're pretty clear about what you're going to do.
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah.
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: And she's always known me as that, and so you know,
• 57:39
  Speaker 4: she's she's always been very supportive of it, which is great.
• 57:42
  Speaker 4: That's important, I think because it's a lifestyle.
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 57:46
  Speaker 4: I mean, like I said this here this week is
• 57:48
  Speaker 4: the first time I've ever been away.
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: In the middle of something that's weird.
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: We're literally meaning some of the guys were last they
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: were talking about you were on FaceTime or something with
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: your career, trying through some.
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: Issues the middle of like the fishing tournament.
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: There.
• 58:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is the first time my crew's
• 58:07
  Speaker 4: ever gone and anybody's ever gone on my boat without me.
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: What time you guys hit the water when you're out
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: four thirty four thirty am?
• 58:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you usually meet at four thirty. Uh. Sometimes when
• 58:17
  Speaker 4: it's like stupid hot, we'll go earlier later in the season,
• 58:20
  Speaker 4: like October. It's you know, we're meeting it because the
• 58:23
  Speaker 4: sunrise doesn't sunrises later. We'll meet later, and we can
• 58:27
  Speaker 4: only crab from half an hour before sunrise eight hours
• 58:31
  Speaker 4: after that we.
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: Can haul gear by regulation, by.
• 58:33
  Speaker 4: Regulation, yeah, because if not, then guys would just go
• 58:37
  Speaker 4: out there fish as many pots as they you know,
• 58:40
  Speaker 4: they go fish one thousand pots in a day if
• 58:42
  Speaker 4: they could go all day and night.
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: Oh huh. That's interesting. She keeps it a little bit
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: humane too, for.
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: The crew, I guess.
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: So yeah, here's here's the last couple questions. Just last
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: thing I want to explore with you, like you're thinking
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: about you if we're talking about okay, you're forty years old.
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: Whatever is is like, is that resource so well managed
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: that you can kind of comfortably plan on a future
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: of crabbing, or is there anxiety about the resource and
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: from from management issues, from disease issues, from climate issues,
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean, or is it like there's always
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: been crabs.
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: There are always be crabs. They're very you know, they're robust.
• 59:27
  Speaker 4: No, there's definitely management concerns, which is what has pushed
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: me to diversify my business in the way that I have,
• 59:34
  Speaker 4: really with the social media and with the retail and
• 59:36
  Speaker 4: all those kinds of things. You know, so like and
• 59:40
  Speaker 4: I like that you said, not just the resource itself.
• 59:44
  Speaker 5: You know, some people don't think we're just like pirates out.
• 59:46
  Speaker 4: There, but like you know, with the management of it,
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: with this and that, with environmental and ecological changes and
• 59:51
  Speaker 4: all those kinds of things, is all factor into like
• 59:53
  Speaker 4: what you're saying. And yes, I have concerned with that,
• 59:57
  Speaker 4: you know a lot of the laws and things like that,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: and the fluctuating crab populations and outside market too.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 4: That's why I'm gone to sell in my own because
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 4: it was kind of like farming before, where I didn't
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 4: set the product or the price for my own product.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: I wanted to have a little bit more control over
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 4: the price of my own product.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: Is that a voweltile market yeah, definitely.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: I mean because now like shipping's gotten so good that
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 4: you know, a lot of our eighty percent of the
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 4: crabs sold Maryland are coming out of Louisiana.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: And then our crab.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 4: Meat market, you know, the pick meat is overseas. You know,
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 4: a lot of that is a different species of crab
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 4: that's just like our crab that's being picked and shipped
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 4: over from overseas.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 5: Shipped to you, not to I mean I don't sell no, no,
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 5: not you.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: But you mean, like you're in Maryland, you think you're
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: in like blue crab country.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 4: You're probably eating a venezuela and blue swimmer crab. What
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 4: if you eat if you buy so you.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: Don't know what you're doing, and you just went into
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: whatever and bought some crab, you're not even getting crabs
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: from local dudes.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: There's a chance you are.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 4: But if that crab cake is less than thirty five dollars,
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 4: there's a good chance it's not from this country. So
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 4: we you know, in our area right in Maryland, a
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 4: lot of the Eastern Shore, a lot of those lower
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 4: grade crabs would all go to picking house, right and
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 4: then those crabs are getting sold generally by the pound,
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 4: of the pick and house and then they are picking
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 4: those crabs by hand and pasteurizing the meat. And then
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 4: that used to be the crab meat market, right, and
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 4: so that gave us something to do with every crab
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: that came over the rail. But nowadays it's not you know,
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 4: it's not really like that. So I you know, I
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 4: wanted the retail spot to be able to kind of
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 4: control my own market a little bit. You know. My
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 4: theory is, like I said, you're gonna only kill crab
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 4: one time, you may as well get it. Well, it's
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 4: worth the most and you kind of have to have
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 4: value added to the product, I think. So I think
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 4: the name of the game going forward for the future
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 4: of the industry is getting the most amount for everything
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 4: that comes over the rail. And so for me, it's
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 4: not only selling the crab, but also the story. So
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 4: that's like I said, you can only catch a crab once,
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 4: you can sell the story time and time again. And
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 4: it also helps with the marketing of the crab, you know,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 4: and all those kinds of things.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: So feasibly in the future, like if you play your
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: cards right, in the future, you could be processing half
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: as many crabs but still making a living.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 4: That's what I'm doing now really. I mean, you know,
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 4: obviously we're shooting video and things like that, but I've
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 4: kind of it really truly kills me. But I've had
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 4: to dial my operate crab operation to scale it back
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 4: a little bit. You know, instead of running fifteen hundred posts,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 4: we're running less than a thousand now, which is like
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 4: super bizarre to me. I've never I've always just gone,
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 4: you know, five days a week and ran a load
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 4: of gear. But now there's only one of me, you know,
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 4: and I got a lot of hands, a lot of
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 4: things that right now that I'm trying to figure out
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 4: how to do and build.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: I've kind of of.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 4: Lean more into the marketing side of the crabs, you
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 4: know what i mean, selling less crabs and getting better
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 4: money for him, kind of premium money for them. But
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 4: it's also you know, we sell a really good product
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 4: and a lot of people want to There's a certain
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 4: percentage of people that are less mindful of the price
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 4: of they know exactly where.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: It's coming from.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 4: So we kind of try to tell the story that
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 4: a lot of transparency as to where your product comes from,
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 4: what goes into catching that product, and then also giving people,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 4: you know, telling the story of the product and the
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 4: people that catch it and the whole kind of how
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 4: everything works. And you know, there's enough people out there
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 4: that are you know, really interested in that, and they
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 4: just like a good product. They know our crabs come
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 4: from Maryland. I don't buy crabs from out of state,
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 4: which is a real pain. I know I could make
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 4: a load more money if I did, but I am
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: just I'm committed to you know, I'm not going to
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 4: deceive people to try to make a couple extra bucks.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 4: What kind of the stick that I have is that
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 4: you know is the transparency part.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: You know, you know where it's coming from.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 4: You can see it, like we just did live stream
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 4: and ship crabs and so like you know, i'd write
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 4: your name on a crab, you get that crab two,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 4: you know a week later.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've got I've got buddies, acquaintances, buddies, black cod, salmon, bison, cattle.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: I could probably go on that have adopted the model
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: you're talking about of being like here I am. Here's
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: how I do what I Here's how I produce my product.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: You can come out, you can come to my ranch
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: and look at it. You can come on my boat
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: and look at it. Here's the people that are doing it.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: There's this guy, this guy, this guy. We go out.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: Here's how we catch what we do, Here's how we
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: process what we do. You can come visit the damn
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: Kyle if you want. And in the end you buy
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: what you know from people you know. And you saw
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: the whole thing happen.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: And all of them have achieved some level of liberty
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: through through through the transparentity of their operation. They've atrieved
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: a level of freedom from the market, meaning oscillating stuff.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: They have a client tele and it's a luxury or
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: however you want to look at it, but they have
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: a client tele that's like, it's worth a couple of
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: bucks to me to get.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: It from you.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, because.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: Because I like how you do it, and I like
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: the things you think about, right, and I like the
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: way you treat everything, and I'll just pay a couple
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: of bucks more.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And right now, that's where I'm That's that's how
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 4: I'm making it work.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 4: I don't know if it's always going to be like
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 4: that or where that side of my business is going
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 4: to go.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: But right now.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 5: That's you know, that's it we're doing.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: There's a lot more.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 4: Work man on the back end, and you I mean
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 4: you got to be one hundred percent committed to everything,
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 4: and there's you know, you're responsible for every part of
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 4: that process now, you know, which is a humbling experience.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 4: You know. I when I got into it sell my own,
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 4: I thought like, oh man, all the crab buyers, they
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 4: make all the.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: Money, you know what I mean. Like, and then you
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: become the guy.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 4: Selling retail and you're like, holy crap, I gotta keep
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 4: these little basherds live all the week. I'm dealing with
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 4: a bunch more people. I got a retail operation to
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 4: keep up, you know, Facebook pages to run ads to me.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 5: You know, it's I mean, it's nuts, man.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 4: It's like you know, it's every every part you know
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 4: of the vertical integration you're responsible for. You know, which
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 4: is good in the long run, I think. But it
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 4: takes a lot of time. There's a steep learning curve.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 4: But it's funny because as you mentioned, like you can
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 4: come visit the cow. So my retail spot the crab
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 4: stand is it's called Bocking Points Seafood. But I it
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 4: was just a grass lot, right, So I started, there's
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 4: just selling crabs out of the bed of my truck.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 4: And I bought this little grass lot for cheap in
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 4: the next town over, and I put.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: Some gravel down, and then I got a refrigerator trailer.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 4: I was selling out of that. And now, you know,
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 4: especially since I've kind of leaned into the whole story
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 4: of it. To build the crab stand, I bought a
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 4: like a forty one foot like wooden crab boat. It
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 4: was sunk, and tore it all down and rebuilt, took
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 4: the engine out, just decked the inside, built a canopy
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 4: and turned it into like my retail spot, and then
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 4: I dug a hole in the ground and put the
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 4: boat into it so it looks like it's sitting on
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 4: the waterline. And then we backed their fridge trailer up
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 4: to it. Because everybody that would come to the crab
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 4: stand was like had a story about Krabber's other granddad
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 4: was a crabber, and you know, they used to buy
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 4: them off the boat, and everybody wanted to come see
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 4: the boat, and so that's not really feasible, but I
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 4: just thought it'd be cool to like bring the boat
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 4: to the people.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: So now you can end.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 4: The boat's got a good story, you know, we tell
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 4: the history the family that owned the boat. You know,
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 4: they've come and visited it like they were just really
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 4: glad to see it, not out to pasture, you know.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 4: So it's a little unique, but it's one of those
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 4: little things that people really like, you know what I mean.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 4: They like to be able to come and see an actual,
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 4: real legit Wooden Deltaville built crab boat and then buy
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 4: crabs off the boat, you know, you know, and take
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 4: pictures with it and whatever. And it's a good landmark,
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 4: you know what I mean. You can't miss the forty
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 4: buried in the ground, you know what I mean.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: The only one you get a landmark, it gets education.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and I have stuff there that I've set up with,
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 4: you know, different kinds of commercial fishing equipment, just that
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 4: you know, for people to look at and check it
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 4: out and you know, stuff like that.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: That's great, man, The whole thing's cool. So here's the
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: last question for you. It's day three of the tournament.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: I don't want to.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: Get into who's doing what and who's getting what day
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: three of the tournament. Every day there's different rules, different objectives, right,
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: different fish you're supposed to catch?
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: What's your I'll tell you what I.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: Think, then you can tell me where this is. Where
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: I'm heading with this. Of all the days of the tournament,
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: today's rules set is the most exciting to me. Yes
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: days was the least exciting. To Where do you sit?
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 4: I I don't know the rules for today?
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: You better find out?
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 4: Well, right, that's what I'm saying. I've heard like a
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 4: bunch of different things, so I don't know exactly what
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 4: you know?
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: What is gospel would be?
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: Would be that won only give you a tip, a
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: competitor tip, friendly tip between competitors. Yeah, it would be
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: very wise for you to dig in on the rules
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: for today, yeah before you gead out.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, no doubt.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: I mean we just days. It's pretty simple.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 5: Yeah, But I mean, well, that's what I'm saying.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 2: Like we've heard.
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 4: Last I heard, you were still making them up, making
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 4: them up so you could I still win today.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: Listen, I'm want to be clear about something. I had
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: nothing to do with these rules. How you know that
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: what I'm saying is true? I would never in a
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: million years have made yesterday Yeah?
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yesterday was tough man that.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: I would never in a million years have made anything
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: to do with muskies.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm anti musky. Yeahs.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 4: I thought about that, but I was like, you know,
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 4: I get it. We're you know, we're at Lake of
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 4: the Woods and it's known for muskie. So it's like
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 4: people would be bummed if you didn't involve them in
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 4: some way. But also if you were to make them
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 4: like the main course, you know, it would have been
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 4: a real boring day. It would have been a real
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 4: radio silence. I mean, yesterday there wasn't much going.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: On well the evening well yeah, yeah, I.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 4: Mean so today, could it be anybody's game that I think.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: That today there's a lot of point opportunities. Today, it's
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: a day where there's a lot of different specialties could
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: come into play, a lot of different approaches and tactics
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: could come into play. And it's a day where like
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: the kind of guy that can go out and just
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: catch a lot of kinds of fish, it's his day, right,
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: this is not a specialist day.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 5: I'm glad to hear that I get a fish in
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 5: the boat.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 4: It's hard to catch like dial on one thing yes
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 4: on the boat.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: Was yesterday It was like the most specialist of all
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: specialist days. It is a generalist day. And when it
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: comes to hunting and fishing, I'm a generalist.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 4: Same jack of all trades, master and none.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: That's what I like to hear.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, when you're a crab specialist with it. But you're
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: a generalist and you have a.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 4: Doctorate in crabbing, but you know a minor and everything else,
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 4: minor in generals general collecting of crustaceans and other various critters.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: Well, good luck for today.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 5: Appreciate it you too, man, Thanks for having me.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, man, thanks for coming on next to.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 4: Finally talk face to face and hang out a little bit.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I appreciate it, and I'm good to hear about
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: crabbing and good to at tonight at the awards ceremony.
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 2: Hope he'll be the guy with a huge check. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 2: actually got a huge check.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 4: Did you actually you actually got a big check to.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: The actual big check.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 4: Nice. That's cool.
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 2: We had to carry that on the plane rolled up.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 4: Oh nice?
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: All right, man, Thanks, stay tuned if you want to
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: find out what happened with the fish Eater classic, stay tuned.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: It's it's it's gonna be the videos are gonna start
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: dropping on YouTube. Just pay attention. Fish Eater Classic Fishing
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: Tournament filmed up here in beautiful Lake of the Woods,
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: Ontario at the crow Rock Lodge, which I would highly
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: recommend to anyone that wants to come and have like
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: a a.
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 2: Fresh water fishing bonanza.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 4: We ain't roughing it really. The food is really good.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: I mean this place, it's great fishing, great great resource,
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: great fishing.
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 2: Check it out crow Rock Lives. Thanks guys.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah,