CAMBRIDGE, Md.- It is an unusual sight: watermen's boats sitting docked in the middle of the day. Right now oysters are plentiful and watermen are catching them at a rapid pace.
"It's the best we've seen," waterman Richard Fairbanks Jr. told WBOC on Monday. "It's been slow last year a little bit slower, but this year it's picked up a lot."
"We are catching them a lot faster than we have been in past years because there are so many," said waterman Scott Todd.
Todd said one big reason for their success is power dredging, which has caused the oysters to grow, and grow fast.
"The oysters are definitely bigger than they have been," he said. "We feel like the power dredging is digging the shells up, pulling the oysters up out of the bottom and allowing them to feed better," Todd said.
Watermen are catching their bushel limit quicker than ever but when everyone is bringing in the oysters, the one thing not coming in is the cash. When the season began last month, you would have to pay $30 or more for a single bushel. But now, the price has dropped.
"At the start of the season oysters started at $30 per bushel and now the prices were lowered today to $25," Todd said.
