Blue Crab Population Slowly Rebounding

"It got to the point where 2000 rolled around, and there was just a lot of concern about whether this fishery would stay alive," Fegley said. "We decided we needed to decrease the rate of removal by 15 percent to make the population sustainable."

Crabbers are allowed to catch crabs for no more than eight hours a day and must take one day off a week. The limits on the size of crabs that can be caught and where they can be caught have been tightened.

Some watermen accept the rules grudgingly.

"It's not like it's been in its heyday, because of the pollution and all that, but I think it's on its upbeat. I hope so," said fourth-generation waterman Roger Morris, who crabs in Virginia and Maryland and was hired by the Department of Natural Resources to use his boat in the winter dredge survey. "The restrictions we're under now have helped a bit now. I'm a waterman, and I never thought I'd say that."

Down the road on Hoopers Island, Joe Hayden and his two sons were scraping barnacles off their crab pot buoys and applying a fresh coat of green paint. Hayden's assessment of state rules was not so generous.

"The DNR is putting so many regulations on us that you're going to quit. This is going to be a job of the past," he said. "I should be able to work when I want to work."

And all the time, he said, his costs keep rising. He needs to borrow money each year to cover the $5,000 he spends to maintain his gear. He needs boxes of zinc bars to provide the anodes that keep his 800 mesh-wire crab pots from corroding in the saltwater. He needs to buy paint and rope and buoys and pay for never-ending repairs on his 32-foot workboat, the "Joey Joel."

His son, Joey Hayden Jr., 19, thought that baseball might be a way off the water. He showed promise as shortstop at Cambridge-South Dorchester High School, played briefly on an exhibition team in Europe and still harbors hopes of entering the minor leagues. He tried nine months at Hagerstown Community College but concluded, "School just wasn't for me."

"They tell us to get off the water. But I'm going to give it a whirl, anyway," he said, standing in his back yard, a rooster crowing and a dog barking, the whitecaps on the green water visible in the distance.

"I like the outdoors. I don't want to be in a closed environment, in an office. I'm just hoping one day I'll hit the lottery, and I won't have to do this stuff."