TARPON SPRINGS – Longtime fishmonger Brandon Lindsey stepped outside the steamy receiving room at Pelican Point Seafood and banged a small stone crab claw against a metal pylon to crack the hard shell. Tasting the meat appraisingly, he nodded and pronounced curtly, "good."
It was the first stone crab of the season, which opened Monday. By day's end, fishing boats heaped with traps were racing shoreward from the Gulf of Mexico. Lindsey's small claw is called a "floater" and others of its size with scant claw meat are cheap, likely to start retailing today at Pelican Point for $5.99 a pound. Medium claws will likely to go for $15.99, large for $18.99 and jumbo for $23.99 — making stone crabs one of the state's most expensive seafood delicacies.
By 5 p.m. three boats had unloaded their prizes at the seafood market, the first a 42-pound catch, the second at 56 pounds and the third at 153 pounds.
Once that 153 pounds of claws gets boiled, iced and sorted into sizes, it's unclear what boat captain Ron Engle will take away as this year's first stone crab payday. But his assessment about the opening of the season?
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