How to Keep Blue Crabs Alive and Well

After harvest your crab pots, it can be a little daunting keeping your crabs alive until cooking.

So, how do you keep blue crabs alive? To keep blue crabs alive, store them inside of a cooler or bushel basket in a damp, chilly, and well-ventilated area. Blue Crabs can last up to 24 hours out of the water as long as they are kept cool and moist.

There’s a bit more to know about keep crabs alive. Let’s look into how you can easily store crabs with a few different methods and their effectiveness.

Just a quick note: while this guide is written around blue crabs, it works just as well for most other crab species: e.g. Dungeness crabs, Mud Crabs, etc.

Techniques for Keeping Blue Crabs Alive

When you catch crabs, it’s important to put them in the steamer as soon as possible. Otherwise, you risk their

There are several ways to go about this. Two widely agreed upon methods are using a cooler or bushel basket.

Method 1) Storing Them in a Cooler

This is, in my opinion, the most convenient choice for novice recreational crabbers. Coolers are easy to transport, cheap, and make keeping crabs alive a brainless task.

You will need:

• A sturdy cooler
• A bag of ice OR ice packs
• 2-3 towels

You should have all of these items at your house. So, it should be manageable setting up. Keep in mind that everything you use will smell like crabs for a very long time.

For your cooler, I recommend one with 2 handles for easy movability and a spigot for drainage. The small faucet is especially important to encourage drainage in your cooler. Crab’s do not fare well in standing water.

Be sure that you have a right-sized cooler. If you plan on catching more than five crabs, you might want a larger cooler.

Here’s an idea on how many crabs you can stuff in your coolers. This is assuming the crabs are an average 5-6″ size and are not stacked on top of one another.

Cooler Size	Max. # of Crabs It Can Hold
20 qt	8
20-30 qt	1 dozen
30-45 qt	1-2 dozen
45-60 qt	2-3 dozen
60+ qt	1/2+ Bushel(s)

If you need help picking out a cooler, I have a list of recommendations in my article: How to Transport Live Crabs (in 8 Easy Steps). You can also click the image below.

Now that you have the right-sized cooler, let’s get into how to correctly store crabs with a cooler.

First, unplug the drain in the cooler. This will prevent any standing water.

Line the bottom of the cooler with evenly spread ice. This should fill about 1/3 of the cooler. Alternatively, you can use ice packs.

Cover the ice with a damp towel. This will soften the brutal cold given off by the ice. We want the crabs to be exposed to a comfortable 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

You need to be the judge on this one. In a shaded area, feel the air just above the towel-covered ice. If it’s too cold, throw another thin, wet towel on top.

The wet towels and cold ice will expose the crabs to a damp, cool spot. This is ideal for keeping crabs alive for a long period of time.

Lastly, we need the cooler to be well ventilated so that the crabs do not suffocate. Cracking the cooler lid open with a stick will do the trick.

That’s it! Your crabs should do just fine for the next 24 hours or so. Keep the cooler in a shaded, well-ventilated area. I recommend raising on end so that the water inside the cooler runs downhill out the small drain on the opposite end.

Quick Note: After storing crabs in a cooler, they will appear motionless and almost dead. It’s a little difficult to tell which are actually dead, and which are not.

Leave your chilled crabs out in the sun for 2-5 minutes If it shows no sign of movement, check to see if it mouth will close or fins respond to interaction. If not, that’s a dead crab.

A Quick Crabbing Tip

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Method 2) Storing Them in a Bushel Basket

This method is commonly used by commercial crabbers or more experienced recreational crabbers.

I also like this method because it’s more practical for crabbers who want to cook their catch straight away or transport from one spot to another.

You will need:

• A wooden bushel basket
• 2-3 towels

If you don’t have a bushel basket, you can find a few here on Amazon for a great price. These can come in handy if you don’t want your coolers smelling like crabs.

It’s recommended that you bring your bushel basket with you while checking your pots.

Once your pots are emptied and your harvest is in your basket, cover them with a wet towel. This can be substituted with seaweed or damp newspaper.

With this method, it’s hard to get around stacking crabs on top of one another. It doesn’t matter as much, however, if you plan on cooking them right away.

The towel needs to be slightly more than damp, barely dripping. This will keep your crabs cool and out of the sun.

Make sure the towel doesn’t seal the crabs. We want air to flow through the cracks on the sides.

It’s best to keep it simple. You want to keep the crabs cool, not cold. Vented, but not airtight. Wet, but not in standing water.

This concludes method two. You may have to re-wet the towels every so often unless you keep it your basket a shaded, cool spot.

Storing Blue Crabs Tips

No matter which method you use to preserve your crabs, there are a few things to keep in mind:

Create and maintain a stress-free environment

You want your crabs to feel as comfortable and easygoing as you can. Not only will this lead to fewer crabs dying, but some also say it makes your crabs taste better.

Here are 4 ways to make a stress-free environment for your crabs:

• Do your best to avoid stacking crabs on top of one another. This is the best way to keep a stress-free environment.
• Avoid all shaking and jostling.
• Keep your crabs in a spot with consistent shade and a nice breeze.
• Keep them in one spot.

Crabs get hungry too

Crabs are scavengers, so they’re prone to eat some unpleasant things. Before you know it, your crabs may end up eating their fellow captors!

A good solution is feeding your crabs. You won’t have to worry about this if you are keeping your crabs on ice, but ice eventually melts. If you don’t plan on eating your crabs by then, you might have to find some crab food.

Crabs will eat oysters, hard clams, dead or live fish, and many seagrasses. Just throw them in the container and your crabs will feast away.

If it were me, however, I would avoid keeping crabs long enough to require feeding. It’s a slippery slope and will certainly lead to many dead crabs.

Some crabs are going to die

That’s the hard truth. No matter how well you store your crabs, you’re going to lose a few.

You can avoid this as much as possible by cooking them straight away, creating and maintaining a stress-free environment, and feeding the crabs.

Despite all efforts, however, some may still die. The question lies, where do you go from there?

You should avoid cooking and eating crabs that die.

You can, however, get away with it if the crab is cooked 2 or 3 hours after it dies as long as the body is preserved somewhere very cold. You won’t be able to taste the difference!

But that isn’t always the case. I wouldn’t eat a crab that was dead for more than a couple of hours, especially if it was out in the sun, at the bottom of a slimy bucket, etc.

Like all seafood: the fresher, the better. Always use your best judgment when eating crabs, especially dead ones.

Quick Tip: To know for sure a crab is dead, take it out of the cooler or basket and leave it in the sun for 2-5 minutes. If it shows no sign of movement, check to see if it mouth will close or fins respond to interaction. If not, that’s a dead crab.

Storing Live Crabs In Water

Let’s say you want to store crabs for a bit longer than 24 hours, which you’ll get from the previous two methods.

Storing live crabs in water will preserve meaty blue crabs days, weeks, and even months if you know what you’re doing.

It will take a bit of work and effort, so this may not be for you. Personally, I stick with the cooler method and it works just fine.

But if you want to stockpile your catch and end up with a huge crab feast, this may be for you!

We are going to be making a makeshift live crab box. If you live near the water, you may have seen one of these tied to a pier or from shore.

I’m not exactly experienced with a crab box, but I’ll try my best to explain it. I understand there are not many resources online on the subject. I would ask an experienced commercial crabber for more information.

It is essentially a small container with a wire mesh lid that floats on the water. Inside, water fills about 3/4 of the inside of the box. It flows freely from small holes drilled into the sides of the container.

This eliminates the possibility of crabs suffocating due to standing water. They’ll receive plenty of fresh, oxygenated water from the river or bay they are being stored in.

Now all they need is food. They can’t scrounge for themselves now that they’re in your crab box, so you’re going to have to feed them.

This will be a daily chore. Crabs love to eat clams, oysters, mussels, smaller crustaceans, freshly dead fish, and plant and animal detritus (Source).

That’s enough background information, let’s get into building your crab box.

You will need:

• a 5-gallon bucket
• wire mesh
• Access to the water where you caught your blue crabs
• a drill

Start by drilling holes around the circumference of the bottom half of your bucket. These need to be large enough for water to flow through, but too small for your crabs to escape. Small, 0.5″ diameter holes will do the trick. Line the bottom of your bucket with enough holes as you see necessary.

Next, we need a wire-mesh top. This will come in handy to prevent any animal from stealing your catch, or your crabs from escaping.

Buy some 1/4 wire mesh from your local hardware store, and use a high-powered staple gun to fasten the wire to the top of your bucket.

Leave 8-inches without any mesh on one end of the bucket, which you can fold back and slip food, or any caught crabs inside. This makes maintaining your box much easier.

Lastly, we need something to make our bucket float. This is where you can get creative. Pool noodles do wonders, also watertight PVC pipes do just fine.

Tie your floating crab bucket to a pier or tree near shore. You do not want it to drift very far, so I would aim for no more than 20ft of rope. You want the bucket to keep off the river bottom so the holes do not get clogged with mud, sand, and rocks.

There you have it! With this box, you’ll be able to keep your blue crabs alive for weeks. This is plenty of time to save up for a great crab feast. Remember to feed the crabs daily.

Related Questions

Can you eat crabs after they die?

I would not recommend eating a crab for more than 2 hours after it dies, especially if it was out in the sun, at the bottom of a slimy bucket, etc. The meat inside a long-dead crab will go mushy and lose its flavor, not to mention it can make you sick.

Can you keep live crabs in the refrigerator?

Most of the crabs you store in a refrigerator will end up dying to due to low temperatures and lack of air. Crabs need to be stored in a cool, but not cold, and damp spot with plenty of fresh air.

How long can you keep crabs on ice?

You can keep crabs on ice for days at a time as long as they are kept out of standing water. If your crabs are in a cooler, leave the plug open so the water runs out.

How do you store crab legs?

You can store crab legs in your freezer for up to 3 months and they’ll still taste fresh. Be sure to vacuum seal them beforehand.