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Mako19 · #1 04-03-2015, 10:42 PM

My wife has been asking me to bring her crabbing in the boat and this week was her birthday. She has not been on the boat since our daughter was born 14 months ago and it was time for her to get a break from being "Mommy" even though it is just for a half a day.

I also needed to burn some old fuel from last summer but there was no reason to bring that up to her.

Anyway, it was finally time to let the Mako swim!

I decided to make it a fun and relaxing day on the water with my Wife, my Mom, and my Dad. I knew it was going to be windy out of the South West so we put in at the new Delcambre landing, which is very nice by the way, and never went South of the Intercoastal. Didn't even take a peep at the bay.

We even slept in a little which is usually not an option when we are going on a serious fishing trip. Anyway, we finally got on the water around 9:00 a.m.

Made one stop in a cut off of the Delcambre canal with nothing doing.

Continued South and headed West in the Intracoastal. Stopped at a wier off of the intercoastal that had a couple of boats ther already but had plenty of room for another.

Caught crabs from the time we pulled up around 10:45 until the time we left at 1:00 but most of the larger ones were caught around 11:45 when the tide switched from incoming to outgoing.

That was also the time that both catfish were caught on back to back casts. Funny, these were the only two bites we got all day and I had a line in the water the whole time we were crabbing. (Market shrimp on a popping cork).

My wife caught the big cat and she had a BLAST reeling it in! I will never forget the look on her face when she realized just how big the fish was that she just caught! Biggest one she has ever landed by a long shot!

On the way in we got checked when entering the Delcambre Canal. The Game Warden boat said "State/Federal" which was strange to me. I always thought that the state and federal game wardens operated independant of one another. Anyone have an explaination for this???

Anyway, they were very courtious as usual and only asked us to show them that we had a life jacket for each crew member. He was hanging out at the mouth of the Delcambre canal and checking EVERY boat.

After the short drive back to Milton to clean the bateaux and gear and save everything it was time to boil some crabs!

I know food is always better when you catch/kill it yourself but these crabs were far and away the best I have ever eaten. Iguess you can't go wrong eating seafood that was still in the water 4 hours ago.

What a great day on the water with my wife and parents! We will talk about the good times we had on this trip for years to come. We took a whole lot of pictures but here are a few to give you a better idea of how the day went.

Final count was 79 crabs, 2 blue channel catfish, and good times all around!

Mako19 · #2 04-03-2015, 10:46 PM

A few pictures of the crab boil and the reward for the "Hard work" we did while crabbing.

I didn't get any pics of the veggies but we also did mushrooms, cauliflower, carrots, onions, potatoes, and garlic cloves.

Emma does not understand that those crabs are not a regular toy and would like to pinch off here little finger. I stopped her from grabbing one out of the ice chest but I broke the claws off of a little one and she played with it for an hour until it was his turn to take the hot tub challenge in the pot.

jl8200 · #3 04-03-2015, 10:53 PM

Looks like a good day on the water.

Marque · #4 04-04-2015, 01:44 AM

I have always seen state and federal game wardens together. I am sure although I haven't run into too many Feds lately. I am pretty sure they pretty much have the same authority within the state. The feds have jurisdiction in any state and are more specifically trained when it comes to international inspections and stuff that the state guys don't deal with very often. I have hunted the Boston Marsh since I was a kid and have had the game wardens come out to the camp a few times and check us. Most of the time it a state and a fed in the same boat. Once the fed made a guy back at the camp bring him out to each blind in the mud boat so he could check us in the blind. He asked permission and he cooperated but they had a pirogue in their patrol boat just in case. This was long before surface drives.