Guide to the Best Crabs in Ocean City, MD

The Best Maryland Blue Crabs
Crabbing in Ocean City, MD
Best Crabcakes in Ocean City MD
How to Pick a Blue Crab

Guide to the Best Crabs in Ocean City, MD

How to catch crabs, how to pick crabs, how to find the best crabs and the best crabcakes in Ocean City, MD

If you’re looking for some of the best Maryland blue crabs around, you’ve certainly come to the right place. Ocean City is known for its abundance of crab houses where you’re welcome to pick the meat and douse on the Old Bay to your heart’s delight, after your crab soup appetizer and before your crabcake entree, of course. In Ocean City, we’re serious about our crabs. Whether you’re dining in or carrying out, check out the guide above before you decide on which of the many crab houses you’ll make your vacation go-to. Check the “Best of Ocean City” results to see which restaurants have won the honor of Best Crabs year after year, and if you’ve had a particularly good experience at any one of them, vote for your favorite in this year’s competition.

Find the Best Crabcakes in Ocean City

Here are the Best of Ocean City® winners

If you’re looking for some of the best Maryland blue crabs around, you’ve certainly come to the right place. Ocean City is known for its abundance of crab houses where you’re welcome to pick the meat and douse on the Old Bay to your heart’s delight, after your crab soup appetizer and before your crabcake entree, of course. In Ocean City, we’re serious about our crabs. Whether you’re dining in or carrying out, check out the guide above before you decide on which of the many crab houses you’ll make your vacation go-to. Check the “Best of Ocean City” results to see which restaurants have won the honor of Best Crabs year after year, and if you’ve had a particularly good experience at any one of them, vote for your favorite in this year’s competition.

Blu Crabhouse & Raw Bar

Captain’s Galley Crab Cake Shack

Crab Alley Crab House, Restaurant, Lounge and Seafood Market

Crab Stop Seafood Market

How to Pick Crabs

Here are the Best of Ocean City® winners

If you’re new to the crab-picking experience and find yourself stumped when your bushels of spiky, hard-shelled crabs arrive, this video will show you how to get straight to the meat.  There are males and females – most of the crabs you get will be males, or “jimmies” as they are known around here.  If you are “chicken necking'” for your own crabs, knowing the difference is helpful.  Think Washington Monument and the US Capitol.

Crabbing in Ocean City, MD

Crabbing with a hand line of a dock or in the Bay

We’ve got some great tips when it comes to crabbing with a hand line in OC, from the initial preparation to picking a spot on the water to stake out. What’s most important, however, is following Maryland’s laws and regulations when it comes to crabbing, and leaving only your footprints behind. We outlined some of the most basic rules when we documented our experience with independent crabbing off a pier in Ocean Pines.

Maryland’s crabbing season is April 1 to December 31.

5 tips for crabbing with a hand line

Choose the right clothes Wear tennis shoes or boating shoes, rather than flip flops or going barefoot. Clothes will likely get muddy, you may wish to take that into consideration...

Horseshoe Crabs in Ocean City

They aren't edible and they won't like to be sprinkled with Old Bay

That’s probably not why you’re on this page, but anyway, they’re pretty cool! You can’t eat them and they’re technically not even crabs, so if you pick up one of these bad boys when you’re out exploring the waters of Ocean City, just throw him back in.

Creature Feature: Horseshoe Crabs

Horseshoe Crabs: Coming to a beach near you! Habitat and History: Horseshoe crabs in Ocean City are not an uncommon sight.  Dating back 450 million years, horseshoe crabs have been given...