Crab Pot Buoy

1900s

This crab pot buoy is rigged with nylon line and is skewered with a weighted wooden stick. This buoy would have been attached to a crab pot.

Commercial crabbing season usually lasts from April through mid-December. Crab pots are used to bait. lure, and catch crabs for commercial use. The Maryland crab pot was patented by Benjamin F. Lewis in the 1920s. Watermen bait crab pots and set them along the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay. Buoys like this one are attached to the pot with rope so that it can be easily retrieved. Crab pot buoys bear the state-issued permit number of the crabber.

The blue crab (Callinectes sapidus) is the official Maryland state crustacean and the states largest commercial fishery product. In recent years, the blue crab population in the Bay has declined and as a result the Maryland Department of Natural Resources has placed strict regulations on commercial crabbing. Regulations manage crab pot specifications as well as commercial harvest requirements.