Even more foraging fun. Miss Ingy taught CA how to use a crab pot. She got four Jimmies her first day.

In addition to the crabs, she also got some ugly-looking Oyster Toadfish (a/k/a Mudtoads.)

It's a bit of a struggle getting the crabs to stay in the six-qt. pressure-cooker. They can (and do) jump out, and can skitter around the galley really quickly. The Old Bay doesn't even slow them down. In fact, it may piss them off.

Once you get him cornered, however, you can use the crab gloves or tongs to put him back in the pot where he belongs.

The pressure cooker isn't too deep. It's only a six-quart pot. But it has the perfect steamer tray, so we can glug in water (and vinegar), stack the crabs, layer with Old Bay and start steaming.

The first night, we did the "not under pressure", standard approach, which recommends ½ hour of cooking.

You can read about pressure cooking here on the Blue Crab Info forum. We tried a version of that the second night. Boil for 5-10 minutes to get them settled down. Add Old Bay. Steam under pressure for 2 more minutes. Much less propane use.

Yum.

I think this means we're going to buy a folding crab pot to drag around with us. There are a bunch of choices here. http://www.chesapeakecrabbingsupply.com/crab-pots-crab-traps

But perhaps something like the SMI trap might be better. Or maybe the Danielson.

We tried both the big, commercial-style fixed trap that Miss Ingy has as well as the smaller "snap trap" that they use. The smaller traps, with sides that flap open and are only closed when you pull it up, requires you actually pull the trap up once in a while to remove the crabs. The larger, commercial-style traps don't require any attention.