Crabbing off the Old Dock

My grandfather taught me to catch blue crabs off a dock in Maryland when I was seven. This Labor Day weekend, I took my own kids, who are six and nine, to the same dock.

You don't need much. A ball of string, a chicken neck, a long-handled net and a lot of patience. You tie the chicken neck to the string, drop it into the water and wait until you feel a gentle tug. Then you pull it up very, very slowly, and when the crab comes into sight, clinging to the bait, you scoop it with the net.

My kids lost their first ten crabs because they pulled too fast. On the eleventh, my daughter got it right, and when the net came up with a big blue crab waving its claws, she screamed so loud a heron flew off the pilings.

We caught twenty-two. We put most of them back. We kept six and steamed them that night with Old Bay, the way my grandfather did. My son ate one and declared, "This is the best food on Earth." My grandfather would have loved that.