Maryland Marine Notes: July-Oct 2001 Sidebar - The Crab Harvest in Maryland

Volume 19, Numbers 4-5 • July-October 2001

The Crab Harvest in Maryland

As the 2001 commercial crabbing season nears its end, preliminary figures indicate that in Maryland watermen caught an estimated 15.5 million pounds of crabs (both hard and soft) &8211; well below the seven-year September average of about 24.6 million pounds. Last year (2000) Maryland crabbers landed about 20 million pounds for the entire season, far below the long-term average of some 33 million pounds. In the Potomac River, where there is a much smaller hard crab fishery, watermen brought in about 42,900 bushels through September, slightly better than last year's 38,500 bushels. These harvests are still far below a 15-year average of 109,400 bushels for Potomac hard crabs.

For peelers, the Potomac saw a decline this year, from 77,967 pounds in 2000 to 52,350 in 2001. Unlike hard crabs, however, these figures are not far off the 15-year average of 64,000 pounds for peelers in the Potomac. Soft crabs, a small fishery in the river, came in at about 3000 pounds in both 2000 and 2001.

Top of Page

		Contents of this issue	Other Issues