Advice for keeping dungeness fresh

I just clean them on the beach.  Remove carapace, remove viscera,  bag in ziploc and put it in the cooler.  Cook later when I get home.  Or cook them on the beach if someone brought a cooker.

Boom...relate...aloha!  I'm gonna chime in on da covid thread after the election...

Thanks guys! Great advice. I think I’ll skip the aerator and just put some ice in a bucket with burlap sac on top. Can’t wait to have them with fries, coleslaw, and a cold beer!

I have 2 methods for keeping them alive. Aerator (transport) with Battery and 1 that can plugin.

I keep my crabs alive for 2 main reasons.

1. Keep them fresh.
2. To get the inside clean. Its process I do for any crustacean where we call it in the Philippines "Pasukain mo" means to make them spit out any unpleasant things they ingested.

They stay alive for days, I will grab some to prepare on any given day. The only issue is lots of work, you need to replace the saltwater every 24/48 hrs.

Last season I went to check the pot in the morning (from Rockaway) and brought them all the way to PP and fish left them in the truck with my aerator. They are all still alive when I got home.

I usually keep them in a mesh bag with small holes or a burlap.  Wet towel on top if you want.  Keep them cool and wet with seawater and they're good for a few hours at least.  I try to avoid direct ice to crab contact, I've seen crabs die from sitting directly on ice too long.

If you can keep an aerator and bucket with some seawater, they are good for quite a while, like mentioned above.  The extra oxygen actually seems to energize them sometimes.  I had a bucket with 5-6 rock crabs aerating, and they were hella mad and fast after a few hours. 

Ace hardware sells a buck lid with a screw top,  I use that in my car if it has water in it.

Mmmm.. bucket.
Darius- I like the idea of not having to cook tons of crab. That’s what we did last week and I ended eating cold crab every day cause I didn’t want it to go bad

Mmmm.. bucket.
Darius- I like the idea of not having to cook tons of crab. That’s what we did last week and I ended eating cold crab every day cause I didn’t want it to go bad

Me too, after 3 days I will cook whatever left then pick the meat make some Crab cake and crab fried rice.

Besides all the methods mentioned here, I found rubber banding their claws noticeably increases their life time and meat quality in cooler, as they spend less energy trying to kill each other, or actually kill each other. Roping crabs to minimize their movement is a pretty common practice in Asia, unfortunately I do not have any of the crab roping skill.

Mmmm.. bucket.
Darius- I like the idea of not having to cook tons of crab. That’s what we did last week and I ended eating cold crab every day cause I didn’t want it to go bad

Me too, after 3 days I will cook whatever left then pick the meat make some Crab cake and crab fried rice.

Towards the end of the season, I pack and freeze 1 lb of crab meat into 1 quart delistore containers.  (Packed tightly with no added liquid).  Then, in the off season, I can pull out some of the frozen crab meat and use it in chowders (mmm crab and corn chowder in the summer).  I wouldn't use it for crab salad or even crab cakes, but in soups and chowders it works great.

Great info. Helps the Central Valley guy who has to drive almost two hours to attempt to crab. Haha


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So yesterday I got a keeper at LM. At 8pm. Put him right in the bucket with fresh sea water and aerator. Got home at 9:30. Connected another aerator (2 heads) and threw in a small piece from the rock fish carcass that I used for bait. At 6am it was dead. I have no idea why.
It was in sea water, in the garage, with enough air, and it was cold outside.
Anybody specializes in pathological examination of crabs?

So yesterday I got a keeper at LM. At 8pm. Put him right in the bucket with fresh sea water and aerator. Got home at 9:30. Connected another aerator (2 heads) and threw in a small piece from the rock fish carcass that I used for bait. At 6am it was dead. I have no idea why.
It was in sea water, in the garage, with enough air, and it was cold outside.
Anybody specializes in pathological examination of crabs?

From what I understand, they need a decent amount (several gallons at least) of cool/fresh regularly changed seawater to keep them around.

I'd probably go without adding the fish too.

So yesterday I got a keeper at LM. At 8pm. Put him right in the bucket with fresh sea water and aerator. Got home at 9:30. Connected another aerator (2 heads) and threw in a small piece from the rock fish carcass that I used for bait. At 6am it was dead. I have no idea why.
It was in sea water, in the garage, with enough air, and it was cold outside.
Anybody specializes in pathological examination of crabs?

that bait you threw in there i bet did it

So yesterday I got a keeper at LM. At 8pm. Put him right in the bucket with fresh sea water and aerator. Got home at 9:30. Connected another aerator (2 heads) and threw in a small piece from the rock fish carcass that I used for bait. At 6am it was dead. I have no idea why.
It was in sea water, in the garage, with enough air, and it was cold outside.
Anybody specializes in pathological examination of crabs?

Ok, there is a lot to break down, but here it is in essence:

Aquatic creatures excrete waste in the form of ammonia. Decomposing fish also excretes ammonia. Ammonia is bad for aquatic creatures. It’s not the lack of oxygen in the water that kills them, it’s the build up of ammonia. When you have small animals like minnows in a bucket they do not produce much waste so they tend to last longer. Large creatures create more. That crab was probably at a lethal dose pretty quickly.

If you ever set up an aquarium there is something called the nitrogen cycle. Critters produce carbon dioxide and ammonia. Some types of bacteria process the ammonia and convert it into nitrites. A second bacteria converts nitrites into nitrates. Nitrates are used by plants and algae to grow. Ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates are bad for the critters. Without bacteria to process all that, or chemicals to neutralize it, or a huge amount of water to dilute it that crab was doomed from the start.

You would have kept him alive longer with just a damp towel instead of the water.

I have kept crabs alive for a few days prior to family coming over in a 100 gallon trough full of water that had temp controls, circulation, filtration, etc. But it’s quite an endeavor if you don’t have that sort of stuff laying around. At the time I had multiple salt water coral reef tanks and hundreds of gallons of salt water along with the ability to quickly make more saltwater. Nowadays I don’t have that anymore so I don’t think I would do it again. 

Looking at your pic you had maybe 1.5 gal of water in there with a big crab. A full bucket would have helped out a lot to keep it alive through the night.