![]() ![]() Sutton said the crabs still suffer from the multitude of fish that eat them and the population’s unbalanced male to female ratio. Recreational crabbers also need a fishing license and are limited in the type of traps they use, Robinson said. The state limits commercial crabbers to setting 200 traps a year. Crabs caught must be male and measure at least 5 inches between the two spine ridges along the sides of their shells, according to Lance Robinson of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. It closes down in February, so the state can retrieve any abandoned traps. If you want to go crabbing in Texas, the first thing you should know is when to catch and buy blue crabs. With no set season in Texas, you can crab year-round with most crabbing gear. This year has been really good.”Ĭrabbing season is 11 months out of the year. The best time to go crabbing is between March and December, when the average surface water temperature is over 70 F, which is ideal for catching blue crabs. ![]() It didn’t show any signs of recovery for a few years after that, until around three or four years ago where we began to see increases. Here in Texas, we harvest blue crab year-round from shallow, brackish waters to the deeper, saltier bays of the Gulf. “It’s getting better,” Sutton told The Galveston County Daily News. With over sixty varieties of crab in the Gulf, you don’t have to visit the West Coast to get the smooth, buttery sweet taste of crabmeat on your plate. Now there are 200 licenses in the state, compared with 400 several years ago. Sutton said the state’s implementation of a crab license buyback program in the early 2000s has reduced the number of permitted anglers looking for crabs in the bay. Our most bountiful harvest occurs in the warm summer and fall months, when blue crabs are their largest and populations are highest. Rain and flooding have increased freshwater inflows, which benefit the crab population because the animals thrive in brackish water, according to Glen Sutton, a crab biologist with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Changes to the commercial license program and more freshwater inflows have led to some of the best catches of blue crabs in Texas since crab numbers started declining in Galveston Bay in the late 1980s. ![]()
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