Crab Fishing

" I prefer the medium crab myself. Most people prefer the jumbo and the collossals."

" Just because of the effect of the..."

" Yeah, I think it's more of a, how do you say, like a status symbol of eating, you know, a big crab. I like the mediums. I find them to be more tender and tasty."

" Hi I'm Barb Freda, your visitflorida.com dining expert. Today, I'm in Suwannee, Florida, due west of Gainesville on the Gulf Coast. This is a little fishing village with a big catch: Florida stone crab claws. We're gonna find out during the day what it takes to bring this delicacy to table. We're gonna head out on a crab boat and see what it takes to pull the crab traps and then bring them back to dock where they're weighed, cooked, chilled, sorted, and sent to market. Every crab trap we've seen has had some crabs in it. He'd harvest the claws and get the crab back into the water as quickly as possible. Once it's back in the water, it finds the spot and start regenerating its claws for the next time."

" If the claws are broken off properly, the crab survives quite well and they're in the breeding community, so they continue to reproduce and like you said, they can even regenerate their claws. When you pull the trap up, whatever is in there is gonna be in there, but you cannot remove any of the claws from an egg-bearing female. She has to be returned to the water whole."

" How many crab traps would fishermen put out in a day and how many do you pull up in a day?"

" It really varies. I do, I usually pull 600 or 700 a day. And the big boys, some of around 4,000, you know, maybe more."

" What it's all about."

" Now, if you wondering, you can get a recreational fishing license and put out up to 5 crab traps. But it is hard work, so the best thing to do is leave it all to the experts like the people we've been out with and the people who're cooking and packing the stuff back at the fish house. I'm here with Ben Green, owner of B&D Stone Crab in Suwannee, Florida, and he's gonna teach us the right way to crack a stone crab claw. He definitely has the technique down. What's important for us to remember?"

" Remember that the stone crab, this is the part you know, everybody wants to eat first. So this is the one you wanna crack. You wanna tap on that a few times then flip it over, tap on that knuckle a couple of times. And then you rotate the crab, give it a couple of whacks. You should have a nice, good crab to eat."

" It's another good one, fancy that."

" You want the crab to come out nice, you wanna see some fat, you wanna shiny shell. Yeah, you wanted to taste like what you just tasted?"

" And when people are buying stone crab claws in the stores, is there anything they can look for 'cause it's obviously encased in this hard shell."

" Shiny shell."

" It's a long day getting the stone crab claws from the Gulf Coast to restaurants and dining tables all across the state -- even across the nation -- but it's a way of life for the people here in Suwannee. I'm gonna treat myself to a great stone crab meal tonight with all the fixings, no holds barred. If you visit Florida during this season, you need to treat yourself to the same. I'm Barb Freda, your visitflorida.com dining expert. Eat local, eat Florida seafood, eat Florida stone crabs."