Keep the crabs you catch alive and cool until you are ready to steam and serve them.
Caught crabs should not be stored in water.
They need oxygen to survive whether they are in water or on land such as in a bushel basket.
Storing them in a cooler filled with water will exhaust them from the stress and kill them because they will soon expend all of the oxygen in the water.
They can breathe oxygen from the air for hours stay alive as long as they are also kept cool.
If you are not ready to steam them as soon as you return to the house with them from the Creek, keep them cool and breathing oxygen by keeping them in a bushel basket secured with lid, cover the lid with a wet cool towel and place the basket placed in a shady grassy area or in the mulched area under the shade of the cedar tree next to the wooden shed filled along the side yard. Spray the towel and basket intermittently with water from the garden hose in order to keep the crabs cool.

During this process the live crabs will express water from their bodies, that’s why you will see bubbles from their mouth.

If you wish to remove their back shell and rinse them (to clean them) before steaming, you will need to stun them with ice cold water first so that you can safely work with them without getting pinched. For this you could fill a cooler with ice and water, then place several crabs at a time into the water. Once they are stunned / stop moving, pickup with one hand and pull the back shell off with the other hand. Use the garden hose to spray all internal contents clearing the yellow linguist. You could also remove the lungs at this stage if you would like.

Toss the cleaned crab into the steam insert of the pot. Once full and the steam pot with couples inches of water is hot, place the steamer insert into the steaming pot.

Prepare the Steam Pot for cooking safely away from the house and back porch roof by moving the burner, propane tank and steam pot out from under the backporch roof.

Add a water, white vinegar, and / or beer (if you’d like, some do!) to the bottom of the pot so that the liquid is a couple of inches or so above the bottom of the steam insert.

Turn on the propane tank, light the burner and put the lid on the pot in order to get the liquid hot.

Using tongs, carefully add in the live crabs from the bushel basket into the steamer insert or add the steamer insert which you have already filled with ice-water stunned/cleaned crabs.

Toss in some Old Bay seasoning, pop on the lid, and steam those crabs for 20-30 minutes.

Prepare to serve them using the blue round platters or the white serving tray, lay out a layer of brown Kraft paper to cover the whole surface of the table in the sunroom or the Gazebo or Backporch table. Grab the wooden container of hammers and a roll of paper towels, melt some butter. You will find those supplies in the blue hutch cabinet in the sunroom or Crabbin’ Station wooden box in the Mudroom.

Once the crabs have been steamed over 20 minutes the shell will turn a reddish color. Carefully remove the lid and pull out the steam pot insert and dump the cooked crabs into the stainless steel rectangular try (which is stored in the white cabinet cooler on the deck) pop on the lid to keep them warm until ready to serve to the family.

Serve them either in one of the blue trays to each person or simply dump them onto the middle of the table for everyone to pick from the pile.

This is what a crab which has been cleaned prior to steaming looks like after it has been steamed. The back shell, lungs and yellow contents have been removed prior to cooking. This is how they are prepared and served on Smith Island!