I am heading to Galveston this weekend. I plan to have a crab boil. If we are not able to catch enough on our own, does anyone know where I can purchase live blue crabs in Galveston? We'll be near Isla Del Sol if anyone knows of any options, besides Kemah.

I don't mean to hijack this thread (which always means, "I'm about to hijack this thread"), but can someone include a good method of preparing? Last time we had a crab boil, they turned out kind of goopy, and we didn't even want to eat them.

Thanks!

Uncle Bucks bait off of 61st and 45 usually has some live crab. 6127 Broadway is the address, 409-744-BAIT (2248)

Monster, were you boiling them whole or did you clean them first? This is the way I clean crab, works both for bait and the crab pot.

Whole.

Thanks!

While I know several who do cook their crab whole/live, I was always taught to clean them first. To me, it's just a WHOLE lot easier to pick meat out of a cleaned crab than having to deal with the "guts and dead man's fingers (frilly looking things that are the basically the crabs lungs). As far a cooking them, some Zatarin's crab boil (either the powdered form or the stuff in the cheesecloth bag), boiling water, and dump in crab bodies and claws. Depending on how many you are cooking at once will determine how long you leave them in, usually about 5-10 minutes, not gonna hurt to "overcook" them as it would with some foods.

unless someone convinces me otherwise, i'll be heading here.

http://www.katiesseafoodmarket.com/

I Crab more than I fish and I love soft shell crabs vs cleaning the hard crabs. I have a large plastic tank here at the house, holds about 300 gal, anyway I bring home the crabs in a large ice chest and leave the top unhooked, more than half stay alive this way and I put into my saltwater/freshwater tank and wait for them to molt, At the moment I am out of crabs but will tell you this, the largest crabs can be found in rivers along the gulf coast.
and I use the pantyhose method of catching them,

Clean them and get a bag of "slap yo mama" boil. Follow directions on the bag. Oh, and don't forget the shrimp, tators, and. Corn. I didn't know not cleaning them was a option.

I don't do it like the guy in the video. I put them on ice w/o water to slow them down, then I leave the claws and legs on. Just pop the top shell off and clean the soft "gills" off the top. Clean all the guts out the middle and your done. If you put them in ice water they will die, if you put them on just ice they will live for a long time and be fresh and slow enough that you can pop there shell off w/o getting pinched. Just my 2 cents. I just did all this, I'm cooking gumbo right now.