High Hook

For quite some time, Maddie has been talking about going fishing and having PopPop and Daddy teach her how to do it. Well, during our vacation trip, her wish was granted. Not only did she catch fish on a fishing pole but we also crabbed until we had caught enough for dinner as well. This is a picture of one of our tasty blue crab morsels we caught that day on Barnegat Bay. We had a multi-prong approach to crabbing....We set two pots when we first got out into the Bay. Maddie's job was to toss out the buoy marker, which she did like a pro.


We also crabbed the way we used to while I was growing up. Piecies of fish tied to a sinker along a string, and every so often slowly pull the line in and see if there is a crab nibbling on it...then the real skill comes into play. You have to then net it before it realizes that it's about to be caught because it's too busy eating up the bait. Oh yes, I have many memories from crabbing this way off of the boat when I was young. Including Kristy falling into the bay from our perch on the bow of the boat and then freaking out because there were crabs in the water! Ok, so maybe you had to be there to truly appreciate watching your sister flail in water that was maybe 3 feet deep because she had just lost a crab off her line and then leaned over too far *giggle* In any case, Maddie picked this method up pretty easy and soon became the "good luck charm" of the boat. We would send her around from line to line to help pull it in since she was the only one catching crab on her line. In the end it was not our best crabbing day on the bay, but we did catch enough to nicely compliment our steak dinner cooked on the grill making it a surf and turf night down the shore.


Poor MomMom decided that even though we were crabbing, the fish on the bottom didn't get that memo. She spent a good portion of the day watching her bait disappear and her line move thanks to a couple of fish. Well, PopPop came to the rescue, dropped a fishing line in the water near her bait and hooked a couple of things that he had Maddie reel in. The first was a small sandshark (aka dogfish) and then an oystercracker. Maddie loved it and hence her title of the day....High Hook.