How to Keep Your Seafood Catch Sustainable

Respecting local regulations and limits to fish and crab responsibly

I grew up crabbing and fishing. Maybe you can blame my dad. He tied flies for fun and loved to cast a long line in every eddy he could find along the cold clear McKenzie River outside Eugene, Oregon where we called home. But I remember fishing and crabbing with him even before we moved to Oregon.

Every summer we’d travel back to my Grandmother’s lake cabin outside Lawrence, Kansas and every cousin who could would try to catch whatever swam in those waters. My dad would load the old minnow bucket with minnows and let it dangle in the water just off the dock. He taught us to scoop up a wiggly little bait and slide it onto a hook so that it wouldn’t fly off the minute we cast.

In the coastal marshes of South Carolina, near where we lived for awhile, he taught us to tie chicken legs to a string and carefully lure in the crab and scoop them up in a net. Now that I’ve lived in Scandinavia for several years, I’ve seen this same technique used by young Danes and Swedes for good summer fun. Many a dock in Denmark has a place to keep the crabs for “inspection” for a bit before returning them to the cold clear Baltic Sea.

From a young age, my dad showed us how to use proper techniques and equipment, how to clean and definitely how to enjoy our catches. Memories are still strong of the fish cleaning hut at Diamond Lake, in Oregon, where he would gut the days’ limit looking inside each fish’s stomach to see what fly he should try the next day. He taught us the value of adhering to legal catch limits to keep stocks sustainable and available for years to come. Continue reading “Sustainable Crabbing and Fishing Experiences Around the World” →