Chicken Neckin' - A favorite Island past time...

Who doesn't like crab? Steamed crab, crab imperial, crab salad, deviled crabs, crab cakes; the list is endless! Almost all crabmeat available for these great recipes comes from one source: the Blue Crab. The "Blue Crab" actually gets its name from the blue tinting on its large front "pincher" claws; otherwise the crab is mostly olive drab on top and white on bottom. Curiously enough, although abundant all along the Atlantic coast and Gulf of Mexico, it is only in the last hundred or so years that they became such a popular part of the American diet; it seems that the older generation believed, supposedly based on some Old Testament law, that they should not eat anything that crawled on its belly. One can only conclude that eventually some clergyman decided he liked crab, or someone else reasoned that crabs swam from place to place and only crawled when they were drunk or stranded, thereby making them an approved food source.

Anyway, if you've got a craving Blue Crab, steamed, deviled or made into a salad or a cake, there are plenty of places around Hilton Head where you can have fun catching your own dinner. If you've never been "chicken neckin'" it's really easy and fun, with just a few simple instructions. First of all, you'll be needing some chicken necks (imagine that) which seem to have been purposely grown by the chicken for no other purpose than catching Blue Crab, a bucket (or other container to hold your catch), some string, weights, a crab net and tongs or other device to hold the crabs (so that you avoid painful bites). Just find a likely spot, tie a chicken neck unto one end of your string, with a weight to hold it down, tie the other end to whatever fixed object you can find, and wait. When you see the line start to move, or you just think you may have a crab, slowly pull the line up, ease the net under your prey and then in one quick, smooth action dip bait and crab all together and deposit the crab in your bucket. If you don't want to use the string method there are all sorts of different traps available at low cost, but string just seems to be the most fun!

There are a few "tricks" to crabbing this way and a few rules you have to follow (unless you want a really expensive bucket of crabs): You do not need to purchase any type of license to crab from a dock, the beach or the shore, but you will need a license if you are crabbing from a boat. Crabs have to be at least five inches long, measured from "point to point" across the top shell, rest assured the law says Five inches; and not a fraction under. Find something to measure five inches with, in case you think you may have a undersized crab (remember: a dollar bill is six inches long). Female crabs carry their egg clusters on the outside of their bodies, these clusters look like a bright orange ball on the crabs underside, as the eggs mature the balls become larger and gradually change from bright orange to dark brown: It is illegal to harvest female crabs with egg clusters. Then there are just two simple tricks to crabbing: 1) When you are pulling in your line, make sure not to pull it into your shadow; this will "spook" the crabs into turning lose and scurrying away. And 2) have patience: crabs are on Hilton Head time, and everything happens a little slower here!