First time Crab fishing in Panama - had a Great day & Good catch for just a few hours in the morning. - Life is Good :-)
🔱 I ran into a friend at Puerto Mutis while helping another friend launch his boat and was invited to go crab fishing the next day.
💦 I never miss a chance to go to sea for whatever reason and at 5 am the next day Pedro stopped by the house to pick me up.
We were back in port before noon, here is our catch
When we got out into the bay the tide was about 3/4 out and ebbing fast. So only a kilometer or 2 from Puerto Mutis we strung out 2 separate lines of 3-inch gill nets.
Our basket would have been near full but the Female Crabs we caught all had to be thrown back in as is the case in many parts of the world and with many species to protect the breeding stock and ensure survival, be it marine life or land mammals as males are capable of impregnating many females and are considered more expendable.
Setting the nets is an easy process if you know the depth of the water, you tie an anchor to the lower weighted side of the net and a float at the top end and throw them over. then you drive the boat in the direction you want to lay the net ( with the current along the sandbar ) and the net just feeds itself out of the boat with little effort. 🐋
Here is where the action takes place.
On the rail to your left notice a 4" PVC pipe that the net slides over and at the back of that is a post guide to make sure the net comes off the boat in that location and away from the motor.
The net you see in the boat is about 4-500 meters, it has a 1/4 inch rope along the top and bottom with small floats every 20 feet on top and small lead weights along the bottom about every 6 feet.
In this balanced combination if you happen to get in water a little deeper than the net it will sink the floats and give you a seal along the bottom to trap fish or crabs.
Bringing in the net takes a little time and effort as you start from the down current side and manually pull the net and the boat along with you as you take any fish or crab that are tangled in the net along the way.
I did manage to get a few crabs untangled myself but it's not easy. These nets are made from fishing line and with all those legs, pinchers and pointed crab shell it's an art for to get them out while knowing how to hold the crab so you don't get pinched.
I'm sorry I didn't get any pictures of the crabs in the net, but when fishing all hands are busy and wet.
Pedro, for the most part, would work his magic while I held the ropes or slowly pulled in more net, only when more than 1 came aboard at once did I try my hand at the crab puzzle LOL. 🐙
This is the same setup as when we go out fishing and we did catch a couple small fish and this near 3 foot shark.
It's very rare to catch a shark this big as they can usually just break through or turn around, but this fellow was unlucky, got hung up and drowned.
Most people don't eat shark, but I find it nice white and tender myself. It's also cut into cubes to make "Ceviche" kind of a pickled seafood treat made from all kinds of seafood.
This a view looking out to Montijo bay ( which is huge ) onn the right is Isla Verde ( green island ) the first of several islands you pass before getting into open Pacific over 30 Km away.
And a view as we return to Puerto Mutis with a good view of Diving Yaght that is based here and does dive charters to very exotic locations offshore.
All and all a very nice day weather wise, overcast and no wind or rain.
Not a bad basket of crab too for only setting the nets twice and having a visit with friends of Pedro's across the bay for a good part of the morning.
It's always a learning experience when I go fishing with Pedro and now he has a small long line system setup, so something new to try next time he goes out.
there are some 6-8 different crabs that are eaten in Panama and very near to Puerto Mutis is a large annual crab festival that I will go to next time and Blog about all things Crab. I went for the first time last year and it was Mucho Fun.
Thanks Very much for reading and supporting my blog - I Love Comments :-)
Life is Good @ steemit.com 💗
Crab is my favorite dish - never tried it out of India though.
They are delicious :-) I'm a seafood freak, have been since a kid.
Puget sound king crab are rare but I've had some near 2 feet wide! talk about a bucket of meat, Yummmm :-)
Cheers
Wow, I haven't tried anything other than the ones found in Chilka lake(try youtube- my part of India). I use the site bawarchi.com for the spicy dishes.
Crab not cooked properly can taste equally awful!
How do you prepare the crab? Bucket of 2 feet crab sounds perfect for soup. :)
Nothing to fancy, usually just boiled/steamed for a few minutes, open and dip in some butter sauce. Life is good :-)
Ah, nice. The Goans of India do that to the sea crab.
They add pepper too.
Do you stun the '2-feet' first or boil right away? I don't think about the poor creature for what they taste. ;)
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