Originally Posted by
Natural Lefty
Hello Carpangler dude. Ironically, my stepdaughter's boyfriend bought a bunch of Rock Crab at Newport yesterday. The commercial people are getting some from boats but probably farther offshore. Maybe the cold weather is driving them farther from shore.
I have some additional information. Those crabs you caught are Xantus Swimming Crabs, a member of the swimming crab group, which includes the Blue Crab of the Atlantic Ocean which is so commonly sold in markets. Swimming crabs tend to be on the small side, and Xantus Swimming Crabs are smaller than Blue Crabs. I went hooping at Balboa a few weeks ago and had similar results to yours, and like you, I put them all back, but some were big for that species, like the ones in your photos. There is no minimum size on them, and I have eaten some of the larger ones, especially when I was relatively "desperate" for some crab to eat. LOL They do taste good and are meatier than one might expect, but all of that is relative. These larger ones are still probably less than half the size of a barely legal Rock Crab.