Soft Shell Crabs!!

Well it is that time of year again when the dogwoods are blooming, the Turkeys are gobbling, the shad are running and the CRABS are PEELING!!

On Tueday few other local chef’s and I went on a field trip and meet with some farms over in Andrews (which I will talk about more latter on)and after lunch we went over to visit Bill and Kathy at Livingston’s Bulls Bay Seafood in McClellanville SC.  We had heard that they had a fresh load of peeler crabs in and that they were about to molt and become soft shells. Peeler crabs are caught in peeler pots and what that means is the peeler pots are baited with 3or4 mature males (not food) and the females are attracted to them and crawl inside the trap.  These small females are then taking out and placed in the tanks and are watched for 24hours untill they start to shed or as they say Bust out of their shells.

 

I had never seen this this happen before and it was very intresting to talk to Kathy and her telling us all about the process.

Here are two video clips.  The first one is of Kathy telling us about the crabs shedding or “Busting” and the next video is a crab slowly busting out of her shell.

I really thought this was very cool to see.

Here are some more pictures I took in the shedding house.

This is what is left after the crab sheds its shell.

Here is Ryan and Kurt from Divine Group looking over the Shedding Tanks.

This is inside the shedding house.