A Point that might ruffle feathers.

[Pier_man0909]

Originally Posted by ffemtreed

I agree with most of your post, but I don't think overfishing is the cause of the bluecrab problem. We are catching record lows and the population is still declining. That stat alone rules out overfishing as a major cause. My guess at the culprit is habitat and pollution. I bet if we can restore the bay grass and oyster population you will see a tremendous rebound in the crabs for two reasons, the obvious is crabs will have somewhere to hide and mature. The second reason is if those two things rebound then that means the bay is healthy and thriving, thus crabs will do better.

catching record lows does not rule out overfishing, it is a direct result of overfishing. I am not saying that it is the only reason, but it is a factor for the decline. I agree that pollution plays a part but the population steadily declined before the water got so polluted. another factor is the recovery of the rockfish. they love crabs and when their stocks were coming up a few years ago after they were almost gone it was almost as if there was a new predator in the system. we had a rising rockfish population and a declining menhaden population so more crabs were getting eaten to make up for the menhaden loss. I caught plenty of rockfish years ago that had bunches of little baby crabs in their stomachs and plenty that had absolutely nothing in their stomach and were skinny as eels. at that point there was just not enough food for all of them. all of those are factors and I believe that you will not fix the problem by only addressing 1 or 2 of them. you need to address all of them. the chesapeake bay is not at all like it used to be. I remember when you could see 20 feet down and count the crabs on the bottom when I was catching big blues on my snoopy pole. now you can barely see 6 inches down.

[DumBbaSS]

I have been living on the Eastern Bay now for the past 9 yrs and love it here. When we first moved here the rock jetty coming out of the boat basin was covered in oysters. They died off 6 years ago and have not been seen since. Every year we have had grass so thick out here that when it breaks free and washes up on the beach it sometimes gets feet thick.Last year there was no grass. Last year we had so little rain that I thought the grass would really take off but nothing grew at all. This summer is just around the corner and I am really wondering if there is going to be anything growing of our beaches. It was a real pain for fishing and boating (the grasses)but you would see the crabs and little fish darting in and out of the pods of grass looking for shelter. Now their lives are a little harder........poor little guys

[Charkbait]

I think you can blame the crabs on the stripers to a point but only because bunker are declining and overfished. Stripers would much rather corral up some bunks and have at it then tackle a blue crab...now softies and peelers are a different story...everyone love them.

[Pier_man0909]

Originally Posted by Charkbait

I think you can blame the crabs on the stripers to a point but only because bunker are declining and overfished. Stripers would much rather corral up some bunks and have at it then tackle a blue crab...now softies and peelers are a different story...everyone love them.

I wasnt trying to blame it on them, just trying to say it is 1 factor of several. I think that overfishing is what led to their decline but the pollution, predators, and overfishing are keeping their numbers down. I hope that makes some sense.