Two of my younger cousins bought a couple of flashlights this afternoon and wanted to go looking for crabs while it was dark. We thought they might be out because we found one or two that had wandered into our pool and died.
The theory was dead on. We walked on the beach and my cousin, Tim, found a crab right away running from his flashlight. He went after it, but couldn’t catch it. He eventually came up with the technique of trapping it with his flashlight. It was a little tricky getting it into our bucket, but he managed. We then went looking for more.
He saw another, caught it, then another, then another. My brother directed one of the flashlights down the beach and there were hundreds! Apparently, they were running away as we walked down the beach. The ones that weren’t as smart didn’t run away fast enough.
As he caught more crabs, Tim then graduated to using an oyster shell to trap the crabs while someone else held his flashlight. Then my wife said Tim shouldn’t be the only one after crab and wanted me to try, too.
I found a shell and went after one. It ran away whenever I got close. After a few attempts with a couple of different crabs, I mastered Tim’s technique. We probably ended up with two dozen in our bucket with me catching about 6 of them.
They were really too small to eat, but it was a fun adventure with the cousins in the family running around on the beach in the middle of the night.
