Coveside Crabs Faces Challenges, Prepares for Upcoming Season

When special-education teacher Lee Carrion decided on a mid-life career change in 2005, she bought Coveside Crabs with local waterman Richard Young. She thought she’d have a chance to relax a little and enjoy a more stress-free lifestyle.

“I thought I’d just be putting some crabs in a bag,” Carrion says, smiling across the kitchen table at her Young, her business and life partner. “I didn’t realize I’d be working about 15 hours a day, seven days a week.”

Carrion, 50, who holds a degree in biology, admits she has always been a bit crab struck. In fact, it was her and the 54-year-old Young’s love for Chesapeake Bay crustaceans that spurred their decision to take on the labor-intensive job of catching and selling soft and hard-shell crabs to the public.

Right now, they're putting in long days in their workshop power-washing and repairing damaged crab pots from last season, as well as re-painting them with a fresh protect coating—no small task when you have 1,800 crab pots.

Additionally, they lose about 20-30 percent of their pots through the season, so they are also building new pots. Next month, they’ll work on their softshell shedding tank and, then, the last thing they’ll tackle is their 40-foot boat.

They say they need a strong 2011 season if Coveside Crabs is to remain viable.

Seasonal Business

During their eight-month season, which begins in April and ends in December, Carrion and Young fill their five, 4-by-8-feet tanks with thousands of soft crabs that Young and his crew carefully handpick every day from Coveside’s 1,800 pots dispersed throughout the bay.

But accomplishing this is much more difficult than it sounds. Young rises at 3:30 a.m. to prepare his crabbing boats for the day.

Before he even leaves the dock, his expenses are a minimum of $400, which include pay for his crew, fuel and bait for the crabs.

Hazards of Crabbing

He and his crew spend at least eight hours retrieving their catch from the previous day and rebating Coveside’s crab pots. Young says he doesn’t mind all the hard work, and neither does his crew, but what does bother them is when their efforts are hindered or set back by reckless recreational boaters or nefarious poachers.

“Boaters sometimes damage our crab pots,” Young says.

But there is nothing worst than having a whole day’s catch poached by stealthy crab thieves.

“When it happens, it’s a very frustrating and a heartbreaking experience,” Carrion says.

Such losses can amount to up to 20 percent of their catch. Undeterred, Young and his crew press forward, but as they collect the crabs, they throw back from 70 percent to 90 percent, says Young.

“We've made a business decision only to harvest the best crabs,” says Carrion. “Our reputation is everything.”

24-Hour Crab Watch

While Young is crabbing, Carrion is answering the phone and selling soft and hard-shell crabs at their store, which is located where they also live at 7656 Old Battle Grove Rd.

After both of them have put in more than 15 hours, they still face another daunting task each evening: the 24-hour crab watch. Every two hours, they must take turns getting up and checking the tanks for dead crabs.

Before Coveside participated in a recent study conducted by the University of Maryland’s Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology, they and other crabbers were losing up to 50 percent of their softshell crabs to a virus. The study helped turn that around and also helped the couple accomplish another one of their goals.

“We have interns who are studying crabs here every season,” Carrion says. Promoting responsible crab harvesting through education is one of the ways Coveside hopes to protect and enhance the Bay’s ecosystem.

Facing Challenges

When they bought Coveside in 2005, Carrion and Young held their own for the first several years.

“When the economy crashed, many people no longer had the money to buy our crabs,” says Carrion. In addition, what Coveside sees as unfair competition from out-of-state crabs is also making it tough for them to turn a profit.

“Right now, crabs from the Gulf Coast are being sold during our season as Maryland crabs and that’s just not right,” Carrion says.

They hope the state’s Department of Agriculture will pass a proposed regulation that will force retailers to disclose where their crabs originated.

While Carrion and Young are optimistic about the future, they are also realistic. “The 2011 season is critical,” says Carrion. “In an ideal world, if the harvest is good, we will sell every crab."