Crab pot season opened on Saturday, but Mathews waterman Kerry Hall’s crab pots were just sitting on the dock on Davis Creek Tuesday morning, waiting for the water to warm up.

Hall said it was warm enough last year to have started crabbing on March 1, but "this year, it’s more like it used to be." And he knows whereof he speaks. Hall started crabbing 50 years ago, when he was just 12 years old. He had 25 crab pots in Horn Harbor, and he worked them with a little flat-bottomed skiff during the summer when he was out of school.

"I had my own spending money," he said, then laughed and added, "that’s more than I get now."

Hall said he remembers the days when a crabber could catch all he wanted.

"I’ve seen ’em catch as high as 60 barrels a day," he said. "I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not. It doesn’t help the price at all—supply and demand."

A change in crabbing regulations this year has cut Hall’s catch limit ...