ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY, Md. — “We live and die by the crab out here,” said Pasadena crabber, Luke McFadden.
Luke McFadden is a first-generation watermen, building his first rowboat when he was just 11 years old. By 18, he was out on the water making a living as a crabber.
“I grew up on the creek. I just always loved being out here,” said McFadden.
Now, he’s sharing his crabbing chronicles with his 1.7 million TikTok followers.
“The fact that’s developed into something that’s so much more is really crazy,” said McFadden.
But behind the short snippets, tells a more pinching story of the increasing challenges of a career as a crabber.
“It’s very long days, we call it dark to dark working. The biggest thing, is that it’s harder to get help than it ever has been. It’s very hard to get people to work and its incredibly expensive to go,” said McFadden.
He says environmental issues with declining water quality, not finding enough crew and costs rising across the board, are eating away at the bottom line.
“Most of us, we’re all spending at least one thousand dollars a day just to leave the dock to catch crabs and that’s whether we catch anything or not,” said McFadden.
The cost for bait, fuel and insurance, all going up.
“You got to be everything. You go to be a mechanic, a welder, carpenter to keep those costs down to be able to continue to go,” said McFadden.
McFadden emphasizes the need to support local watermen.
About 95 percent of all Maryland restaurants imports crab from outside the state, according to the Maryland Department of Agriculture.
“Ask questions about where your food is coming from. We want to make sure we’re keeping our money in the state, locally, stimulating the economy now more than ever," said Matt Scales, the Seafood Marketing Director for The Maryland Department Of Agriculture.
The state's True Blue Program allows restaurants serving Maryland blue crab products to use a logo in marketing or advertising the product.
“There’s still a lot of people that are dependent on the local community to make their living,” said McFadden.
McFadden says eating local creates and keep jobs in town from the catchers, packers, drivers and grocery store workers.
“People want to know where their stuff is coming from. What better way to have a relationship with the person that’s actually boots on the ground with the person catching the seafood or growing the crops,” said McFadden.
Helping to foster that relationship is by bringing people on the boat with him the best way he knows how, through social media.
“Social media is a great tool to build community around that. To encourage people to keep it in front of their mind, to make that conscious decision to keep it local,” said McFadden.