Phat, you are 100% right, in those last 15 years the crabs have really declined, I use to go out a get a bushel without a problem. Then I noticed the amount of people crabbing had almost tripled and as the years went on it got worse, it was hard to even get a couple of dozen and I was crabbing in Staten Island, Brooklyn, but mostly in New Jersey.
G

Phat, yeah. that's the one. big white plastic thing. it was perfect if you were making a crabmeat stuffing. one just sold on ebay for $405 bucks!! i couldn"t believe it.
beat the crap out of picking 6 or 8 dozen crabs.
and yeah, the population has turned to sh!t. we used to walk the canals by where i grew up. i was a couple blocks away from 3 good canals with navy bulkhead. we used to walk the bulkhead and scoop them right off the wall. sometimes as many as 100 crabs in under an hour. big a$$ crabs too. now? half the size and 1/4 the numbers.