CAMBRIDGE, Md.- A few weeks ago it was rare to see watermen bringing in truck loads of crabs.
"We got off to a slow start this spring. The weather was kind of unusual, we had a warm March and then it got cold and wet in April and that's not good for getting crabs going. But, we've got an abundance of male crabs," said Dorchester Seafood Harvester's Association President Scott Todd.
It was a harsh April for the crabbing industry. Todd said a slow start stifled many local watermen.
"It's better than what it has been and is better than in April, because April was a complete blank for a lot of people," he said. "We never caught a crab the whole month. They just didn't move."
Watermen are now catching bushels of crabs and gas prices have dropped since Easter weekend. Todd said every little bit helps.
"Prices have probably gone down 30 to 35 cents a gallon since we started, so that's a couple extra bucks in our pockets," Todd said.
The only problem with catching a lot of crabs is everybody has them. That, in return, drives down their price.
"The prices seem to be going down on our end so we kind of feel like we must be catching a few of them for them to be cutting the prices on crabs," Todd said.
Watermen know prices typically drop after Memorial Day, but now that they just started catching them, they would prefer the prices to remain high.
