Summer Seafood Essay

Summer Seafood One of my favorite things about summertime is seafood. At the beach, my family and I always go to a seafood buffet. My most preferred item of seafood is crab. I work at a local seafood restaurant and have always wondered what the best kinds of crabs are and how to catch them. The most popular species available for consumption are the blue crab and the king crab, found in specific locations around the world. Fishermen use different harvesting techniques and abide by different rules and regulations for each.
The most common type of crab served in restaurants is the blue crab. They can be found all over the world but are mostly caught in the western part of the Atlantic Ocean, specifically the Chesapeake Bay. There are four grades of meat that can be collected from a blue crab. Each has specific primary uses, but regardless of where the meat comes from, it is almost all solid protein. Blue crabs are harvested using a variety of methods, and not all crabs that are caught can be kept. The laws set by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are different for every state, but most of them say you cannot keep female crabs that are not mature and male crabs that are larger than five inches in width. You can tell if a crab is male or female by looking at the apron, which is located on its underside. A male will have a long, thin, and pointed apron while a female’s is rounded with a point at the tip, and an immature female will have a triangular shape (Zinski).
A widely-used technique to catch blue crabs is with a simple crab pot and bait. Many recreational crabbers use chicken necks for bait since they are considered trash and are very durable. Commercial watermen, on the other hand, prefer to use various types of bait fish, eel, and bull lip. Some watermen use frozen fish because it tends to break down faster than fresh fish, which seems to attract more crabs