Growing up on the Chesapeake Bay, I never realized seafood dinners could be considered fancy. I didn’t know that people paid good money for lump crab meat with melted butter. To me, a crab feast meant wet hands, the smell of salt marsh mud, and an afternoon baking in the hot summer sun.
I was barely old enough to ride a bicycle, but I knew I could catch enough blue crabs to steam them up for supper with nothing more than a chicken leg, a length of line, a dip net, and a good helping of patience.
My cousins and I learned chicken legging the way kids usually learn things, by watching someone else. My Grandma Alice often held the dip net, coaching us through the finger-over-finger retrieve, whispering for us to slow down and take it easy. Later we would spend our own long summer afternoons on the marsh and come home with a basket full of dinner.
Chicken legging for crabs is almost disturbingly simple. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy.
Fishing a Chicken Leg
Growing up, my cousins and I started with a raw chicken leg tied to one end of a length of string with a bolt added to weigh it down in the water. We tied the other end to a stick. That’s it. The bolt was nothing special, just what we had lying around at the time. A small sinker works just as well, maybe even better.
Then, we would toss the bait into the water, jab the stick in the mud, and wait. Waiting on anything is tough when you’re a kid, but the best chicken-leggers knew to leave it alone. A bait that gets hauled in every two minutes will never catch a crab.
If you paid attention and knew what to look for, you could tell when you had a crab on the line. First, the line slowly pulled taut. If you had a big jimmy on, it might move sideways as the crab tried to swim away with its prize.
That was when real patience came into play. Move too fast, and the jig was up. You had to pull slowly, keeping the retrieve smooth as butter. It might take minutes of pulling finger over finger until you could just start to make out the shape of a crab still clinging to the chicken leg in that murky green water.
The entire process required immense patience until the very last second. You moved slowly, getting the net into position without casting a shadow over the crab or its dinner. Once you lined the net up behind the crab, you had to move fast. You get one chance with blue crabs.
Chicken Legging Gear
Blue crabs are scavengers, so they aren’t picky eaters. While chicken legs are easy to tie on a string, necks, backs, and other scraps work just as well. Plus, they aren’t the kind of cuts people fight over at the dinner table.
That’s the real beauty of chicken legging. It doesn’t require much, and the gear you do need isn’t expensive.
The line itself is almost beside the point. Over the years, I’ve used everything from paracord to kitchen string to heavy monofilament. It just needs to be strong enough to pull in a crab and long enough (15 to 18 feet) for your bait to reach the bottom. Whatever you use, tie it around the middle of your piece of chicken.
Crabs like to feed on the bottom, so some sort of weight is handy to keep your bait down there. A one- to two-ounce fishing weight works great, but so does a heavy-gauge nut or bolt. They’re also easier to tie on than a sinker, especially if you’re using string instead of fishing line.
You also want to secure the non-bait end of your line to something to keep the crabs from dragging your whole rig off. A stick in the mud was the preferred method of my childhood. A tent stake works just as well. You can also secure the other end to a boat cleat, dock railing, or bucket handle. It doesn’t have to be fancy, just secure.
A long-handled dip net is necessary for scooping the crabs up out of the water. You want one with a deep basket-style hoop and heavy poly mesh. Soft, thin mesh will snag on crab claws, making it nearly impossible to get them out of the net. If you’re chicken-necking from a dock or pier, you’ll need a net with a relatively long handle. You can get away with a shorter one if you’re catching your crabs from the shore or a boat.
When and Where
Once you have your setup, look for a place to toss your chicken leg. Shallow water with a sandy or muddy bottom is a good place to start. Look for marsh edges, brackish creeks, shaded docks, and other places crabs like to hang out.
Be sure to check the tide schedule; chicken legging tends to be more productive when the tide is moving. Crabbing rules also vary widely by state, so take a gander at the local regulations before you go. Harvest regulations, seasons, and size limits can change from year to year.
Final Thoughts
It is easy to understand why people consider lump crab meat a delicacy. Sweet blue crab dipped in butter makes for a mighty fine meal.
And yes, there are plenty of ways to catch blue crabs. Most of them are faster and more efficient than using a chicken leg tied to a piece of string. But when I think about crabs, I don’t think of linen table cloths and folded napkins. I picture that muddy salt marsh and my sunburned fingers slowly pulling that string toward shore.
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