People often ask us, “So how exactly do you catch crab?” It’s pretty simple. There are big metal cages on the bottom of the ocean with ropes tied to them. Floats keep the other end of the rope on the surface. From a boat, you pull the trap up really fast, so that the crab don’t get away…

Once the trap full of crab is aboard, you sort through the crabs and pick out the males (you can only keep males) and make sure that they’re of the right size. Just for kicks, Lori shot some video of the process as we caught some fresh Dungeoness crab off of our beach on Lopez Island.

Here is exactly what you’re seeing:

Jeff is pulling up the trap as Olivia yells, “Go Daddy Go!” repeatedly. She does this to encourage whoever is pulling up the trap to pull faster so that the crabs don’t get away. She yells it the entire time the trap is being pulled up.

Lori zooms in to get a look at the crabs while Charlotte whines about not getting all of the attention.
Gretl (our chocolate lab) comes over to investigate and try to steal a crab.

Olivia waves from the back of the boat, where she insists upon remaining until all of the crabs are locked up.

Jeff uses a yellow “crab gauge” to check the size of the first crab, finds it to be a little small, and throws it back.

The next few crab are sized, are adequately big, and are put in a livewell (a holding tank that gets saltwater circulated through it) at the back of the boat.