Monday 21 May 2012

Fishing for Spider Crabs

I took Hamish for an early walk around the harbour this morning and the ‘Good Fortune’ had returned from a fishing trip.  The catch of spider crabs was being unloaded and weighed as I passed by …

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According to Shellfish Cornwall:

Not many people know about spider crabs, also known as the Cornish King Crab, with its eight spidery legs and two long pincer claws.  Almost unique to Cornwall, this reddish-brown beast is the Cornish answer to the Deadliest Catch!  They have a lovely sweet taste, worth the effort involved to find the best bits tucked away in the legs.
Spider crabs were once so numerous that at very low tides the harbour floor in Newlyn would turn reddish-brown, so dense were the piles of spider crabs resting there.  Cornwall’s hidden fishy secret, more than 300,000kg of spider crabs were caught in 2007 but at least 95% were exported to France and Spain.

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