It was a typical, triple-H (hazy, hot, humid) August morning on the Chesapeake’s Eastern Bay in 1977 when my father and I set out on our first-ever crabbing expedition. We had spent the evening before swatting at mosquitoes and biting flies under a flickering patio light at home, baiting a 1,000-foot trotline with 25 pounds of smelly, salted eels. I couldn’t tell afterward which smelled worse: my dad and me or the baited line. My mother considered kicking us out of the house.
No matter, I couldn’t sleep anyway. I was hopped up on the idea of blue crabs, having just read William Warner’s Pulitzer-winning Beautiful Swimmers. The fantastic book followed the commercial blue crab fishery through the four seasons. My dad had just bought a 12-foot Sears & Roebuck Gamefisher skiff and 9-hp Gamefisher outboard on his beloved store card (we bought everything from Sears back then). We were hell-bent on operating just like the professional watermen in Warner’s book.
We launched the boat before the sun rose. The beaten-up wood ramp was as slippery as the eels on our trotline. I fell into the water twice, which amused my father but put me in a mood. Dad’s penchant for throwing caution to the wind included driving the puke-green skiff far too quickly through dense fog into genuinely uncharted waters. He sensed my snotty attitude and bought me off with a frosted blueberry Pop-Tart. A few minutes later, I was as right as rain.
The trotline deployed in Keystone Cops fashion, getting tangled up on the floats and anchors at both ends, and eventually routing its way around our outboard prop. That’s when Dad opted for a brewski. Breakfast of champions.
After we’d tweaked the line tension and covered ourselves in jellyfish stings up to our armpits, we were ready to make the first run down the line. I sat forward, poised with a wire dipping net, while Dad sipped beer and toked on a Marlboro. The line sank as heavier crabs held on for the ride to the surface (I’ve always been amazed at how a blue crab’s fight or flight mechanism is almost completely disabled by the opportunity to eat). It was my job to scoop them into a bushel basket before they dropped off.
By the time the sun was high, and the temperature and our body odor were unbearable, we’d caught a nice mess of large, male blue crabs.
As soon as we got home, my dad was on the horn inviting neighbors and friends over to pick a mountain of hot, steamed crabs served on a newspaper tablecloth with cold beer — still a preferred Maryland summer pastime today.
We’d repeat this weekend summer ritual at least a hundred times before I reached the age when spending time with Pops was definitely uncool. What strikes me about those weekend crabbing trips is how clearly I remember so many of them almost 50 years later.
We had days when we caught almost nothing, and one day when we filled the bottom of the boat with three bushels of crabs on only a few runs down the line. Most of all, my memories are peppered with visions of my dad in his happy place, which was collectively our happy place. All we needed was what would become a tortured, beat-up skiff that later split in half while we were watching the Blue Angels in Annapolis, Md.
Even into my adulthood, my father and I fished, sailed and enjoyed being on the water together. His eagerness to enjoy our watery world is what ultimately steered me in the direction of the boating industry, perhaps one of the most enjoyable places to make a living.
Enjoying time on the water, no matter the activity, is what we’re selling as an industry. As the president of the National Marine Manufacturers Association said recently at the American Boating Congress in Washington D.C.: “We’re in the pursuit of happiness business.” It’s important that we remember these things first and foremost as we recruit people into the fold and bring others back.
If you think about it, getting a newcomer interested in boating, fishing, sailing, skiing, wakeboarding or any other water activity is not a hard sell. That said, I think we sometimes lose sight of the simple enjoyment we’re offering as we worry about supply chains, inflated costs, high interest rates and other obstacles. I’ve seen that melancholy on show floors during the past 35 years, and it’s never a good sales strategy.
So, if you’re feeling overwhelmed by the daily grind, just remember that it only takes a bunch of mosquito bites, numerous jellyfish stings and body odor to get someone amped about the sport of boating. I hope you enjoy sharing your memories with your customers and colleagues as much as I enjoyed this trip down memory lane.
This article was originally published in the July 2024 issue.
