Crabbing on the pier - can someone describe this? Is it free?
It used to be free (don't know for sure if it still is) and we'd just borrow the crab traps from equipment rentals and walk out onto the pier. SC allows crabbing (to harvest them) from October through May. You'll likely have more success in the beginning of the season, October/November/December, or the end of the season, April/May. Not 100% sure but I think they also still allow only catch-and-release between June and September. You'll have to ask when you're there in June.
Ask the CM to show you how to pick up or hold the crab once you catch it, so you don't get pinched. It's easy, you just bring your hand toward it from the BACK end of the crab and grasp the crab above and below the middle of its shell with your palm at the back end. Then while it's claws are waving, they can NOT reach your fingers.

If you'll want to keep/cook them, turn it over to see the underside, whether it's male ("Washington Monument") or female ("Capitol Building Dome"). You can only keep/cook crabs over 5 inches from side point to side point and never females that have an orange sponge full of tiny baby crabs.

To keep your catch alive and fresh, bring along a covered bucket or pot and fill it with water from the inlet there to hold them while you're still crabbing. Or just go crabbing for the fun and toss them all back into the water right away.


Crabbing traps are usually simple metal rings with netting stretched across them and a fishing hook tied into the center of the net. The outer ring is attached to a long rope.

Tie the far end of the rope to the deck railing at the end of the pier. Attach a piece of bait to the hook and lower the baited net to the river floor. You may wait until you feel movement on a taut rope or periodically pull up the net quickly to check it or you may even be able to see a crab climb onto the flattened net to pick nibbles off the bait and then you pull it up quickly. Lift the net onto the deck and the kids can watch the crab scurry to the edge of the deck and fall back into the water or you can pick it up to see it better before tossing it back. Our kids (pre-teens at the time) LOVED this so much that we bought our own crabbing nets!
BTW, we've seen lots of different things used as crabbing bait... chicken necks, small shrimp, pizza crusts, steak meat/fat scraps... they're scavengers so they approach almost anything. It was funny that sometimes when we brought both crabbing nets and fishing poles to ocean breakwaters, we caught more eels in our crabbing nets and more crabs holding onto our fishing pole bait!
But some of our most fun crabbing was definitely at the HHI resort.

Super activity with kids.