The Rosetta Stone Of Crab Math

8:13 PM | | Edit Post
Doesn't exist. Looked it up. Can't find out how many in a pot. What I think I know from The Deadliest Catch is that a great king crab pot has more than 50 and a great opilio crab pot has more than 100. I did find out how to spell opilio. I thought is was opelio.

Some guy in Canada gets really scientific about it. He tells us about how many opilio go into each pot of each size. I thought there was only one size. I bet the guys on the Seabrooke use the big honkin' kind. No word on king crab.



Did find a site that has King Crab 101. Here's what I learned:

  • King crabs are direct descendants of hermit crabs. This must mean that those little guys you get for your kid when they are in preschool got to be some pretty big grown ups. 
  • Really big king crab have a leg span of 6 feet across and weigh over 20 pounds. That's about 5 reams of printer paper that you use in your inkjet and you know how heavy that is when the plastic bag from Staples rips down the sides and you have to kind of balance the paper under the handles because you have to hold the sticky notes, colored paper clips and impulse candy purchase in the other hand.
  • Red king crab has a red shell
  • King crab live from 10 to 20 years. Think of all that teen angst. Don't you slam that door on me, young lady.
  • Bait is really the stuff that eats king crab. Honest.
  • Eeny weeny king crab eat phytoplankton and zooplankton. This means they eat the stuff that floats around in the water that makes your bathing suit smell funny.
  • Adolescent king crabs eat other crabs. I could make a really bad Columbine joke, but I won't. 
  • Grown ups eat worms and barnacles, among other stuff. Aren't you glad you know what you're eating?
  • You catch red king crab in 200 feet of water. 
  • You catch golden king crab in 1600 feet of water. That's a lot of line. And that's why no one does it, at least on Deadliest Catch. Sig went for blue crab last season. It was very dark and very cold. I don't think blues are king crabs.
  • King crabs are known as snow crabs, and are served in all-you-can-eat restaurants. They really say that.