Crabbing at Lymington Harbour

This was what we used to do when we were young, and later, when we had children we did the same with them: we used to go crabbing at the Canoe Lake in Southsea. We would use my Ma’s best bacon from Waitrose to lure the crabs out of the small concrete canoe lake and catch them. Just for fun. And then we’d release them back to the lake. The crabs wised up and loved being caught. They come back again and again for the free lunch.

It works both ways because the children loved tying strips of bacon to the ends of strings and hauling the crabs in.  Once, a huge one chased my toddler son Jack who never got over his fright of crabs ever since. Happy days! We took our two grown-up girls to Lymington Harbour on a fine summer’s day hoping to persuade them to go back to this beloved childhood pasttime. They declined so we just sat in the harbour and watch other young families enjoying the time-honoured pastime of crabbing.  Memories are made of happy days such as these ❤