by Larry Chowning –
Virginia’s commercial crab pot season opened on March 17 but coronavirus has local seafood businesses and crabbers wondering what type of crab market this season will bring.
There are three crab markets for watermen within the state’s crab fishery. Watermen working crab pots supply female (sooks) crabs to picking houses where the meat is picked, packaged and sold to grocery stores and restaurants. Customers buy the meat to make crab cakes.
Those same watermen who work crab pots sell their male (jimmies) crabs to a basket market. This market is a strong local market for crabbers. Jimmies are sold live to customers in bushel baskets and are steamed by the buyer or at the crab house.
The soft-shell crab market is the third market. A blue crab grows by periodically molting (shedding) its hard exoskeleton. When a crab first sheds, it comes out with a soft-shell. Fried soft-shell crabs are considered a delicacy. The main market for soft-shells are restaurants in cities. About one-third of all soft-shell crabs caught commercially in Virginia are caught during early crab runs in March and April.
“This creates a real problem for us,” said Lee Walton of Walton Seafood in Urbanna. “We always work the spring soft-shell crab runs…
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