GALESVILLE, MD – Jack Torney guides his twenty-one foot working boat across dark, glassy water and through a series of coves as the early morning sunlight paints the horizon orange and yellow. It's a little after 5 a.m., and Torney, 23, is searching for the best spot to catch blue crabs.
"I enjoy being out on the water," says Torney, who wears a blond goatee, a camouflage cap, red T-shirt and baggy shorts. "Growing up, I didn't like going to school, just because I didn't like being in a building all day. I'd rather be in nature."
Chesapeake Bay blue crabs – zoological name: Callinectes sapidus or "Beautiful Swimmers" – are to Maryland what lobsters are to Maine, a signature seafood and part of the state's identity. But these are challenging times. A recent University of Maryland survey found the bay's crab population fell by half between 2011 and 2023, though a survey this year showed an encouraging rebound.
Scientists have confirmed that some of the drop is due to the invasive blue catfish, which eats juvenile crabs. Another factor is residential waterfront development, which has reduced marsh and seagrass beds, the main habitat for young crabs.
Meanwhile, the average age of a crabber in Maryland has risen to the late 50s, according to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.
Nor is it easy to get a license. Maryland has capped licenses for the past decade at around 5,400 annually to protect the fishery. Licenses are often passed down through families and turnover is extremely low.
Torney says he's part of a dying breed.
"There aren't many 18- to-30-year-olds left crabbing," says Torney, as he glides past a big catamaran at anchor and million-dollar-plus homes that dot the shoreline. "Most people my age don't see it as a full-time job. They'd rather work in an office building than be out on the water."
Torney, however, loves working as a crabber.
This morning, he lays out several lines that sink to the bottom under the weight of orange mesh bags filled with razor clams as bait. Crabbers call these trotlines. Each of Torney's measures about eight football fields long.
Torney's equipped his boat with a roller. As he drives along the line, the roller lifts it from the muddy bottom to the surface. It's like a crab conveyor belt, bringing the crabs out of the murky water, where Torney can scoop them up with a metal mesh net.
This man vs. crab contest can be exhilarating.
Blue crabs have panoramic vision and are good at detecting prey and predators. When they see Torney, some try to unhook their claws from the bait bags and sink back into the water. When that happens, Torney digs his net several feet below the surface, scooping blindly in the brackish water to catch the crab before it escapes.
Torney tosses the crabs into a bin, where they scrape about looking for a way out. Crabs are feisty. Approach the bin and one is certain to square off and bear its claws, ready for combat.
Torney works alone to keep costs down. But rising prices, including fuel, cut into his profits. He also has to pay marina slip fees and licensing fees, as well keep up with boat maintenance.
The new model: social media
Torney says a solo crabber can earn about $95,000 a year, but overhead consumes a third of that. To earn more for what he catches, he uses Facebook to sell directly to consumers from his driveway.
"I will put a post out around 10 a.m. this morning," Torney explains, "let everybody know I'll have them fresh off the boat."
One of Torney's contemporaries, Luke McFadden, 30, has taken that model to extraordinary levels. To sell his crabs and promote the industry, he's become a social media star with more than 3 million followers.
McFadden has posted hundreds of videos. They include everything from tutorials about how to pick a crab to a regular feature where McFadden takes requests from followers on what to use to bait his traps.
One morning, while hauling up his metal traps – or crab pots as they are called – McFadden talked about how exhausting it had been to run a crab boat, sell his crabs and make videos at the same time.
"I hit some serious walls," McFadden recalled. "One time I was delivering crabs in my truck and I was just completely out of it and I came to in the middle of an intersection."
All that hard work, though, paid off.
McFadden, who says he has no business background, used some of his profits to hire a six-person media team that pumps out two, long-form YouTube videos each week. McFadden's videos have helped him build a branded merchandise business and a loyal customer base.
He sells his crabs from a converted 41-foot fishing boat he's placed in a gravel parking lot. From the boat, McFadden also sells T-shirts, fishing caps, even bags of potato chips with his face on them.
When McFadden announces on social media that he'll be working at the stand, fans descend. One recent weekend, Kodi Holbrook, an electrician, and Jenee Sarisky, who works in retail, drove four and half hours from Long Island just to meet McFadden. Holbrook, 24, said he enjoys McFadden's videos and "seeing people actually catch the seafood and to see where the food comes from that we've been eating all our lives."
Not everyone on the bay is a fan of McFadden's. Last year, one of his boats was vandalized, which McFadden documented on social media. McFadden says his style rubs some old-school crabbers the wrong way. But he also says that to make it in the crabbing business, especially as a young man with a long career ahead, one must adapt.
"You're going to have to get creative in a lot of ways," says McFadden. "You're going to have to make the most out of everything that comes over your rail. For me, it's the crabs, and it's the story."
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