A Quiet Afternoon in Hobucken

Highway 304 dead-ends in Hobucken, one of the most remote towns in Pamlico County. The flat, two-lane road sees very few cars and is flanked by two deep, water-filled ditches that often flood—now large enough for a kayak.


Before the highway stretches over the Pamlico River, a small hidden dirt path cuts off to the right, leading to a tidal estuary—a flood plain stretching out toward a distant forest. Mirror-imaging the sky, the pond looks brilliant blue. Tree stumps poke out of the water, and seagrass gently sways in the breeze without overpowering the sounds of dragonfly wings.


It is Saturday and an extended family from nearby Nash County brought folding chairs, umbrellas for the sun and raw chicken as bait for an afternoon of hunting blue crabs. There are five adults and many children, all related. They came in two cars, now parked on the dirt road, hatchbacks still open for easy access to fishing supplies.


“It’s a crab. No, a fish. No, a crab!” whispers six-year-old Jared Lopez.


His sister surveys the water from her perch on a wooden structure that was built by the county.


“Dos!” he says, holding up two fingers, switching back and forth between English and Spanish. Eduardo, his dad, brings the hand net. Jared approaches the water and loops a fishing line around and around a plastic bottle, reeling it in.


“Be careful,” warns Eduardo.


The crabs are holding onto a raw chicken leg that was tied to the line and submerged; the other end of the string is wrapped around Jared’s bottle. He slowly drags the crabs in. “Pasito,” says Maria Hernandez, a cousin, in Spanish. “Gently.” 


Finally they are close enough for Eduardo to scoop them with his net; only one crab makes it.


“It’s a big one,” says Jared. The sound of crabs crawling over ice in the cooler is somehow comforting. They have caught 12 blue crabs in 30 minutes.


“This is Mexican style,” Maria tells me, laughing, pointing to the plastic bottles.


Sometimes we fry the crabs, she explains to me, a delicacy that Pamlico County is known for. “Or we make a Mexican soup with shrimp, chili pepper, tomatoes, dried peppers.”


Four other string-tethered plastic bottles, rigged with raw chicken meat and thrown in the water, lie in the grass. One starts to move, rolling toward the water. Jared’s cousins, Diana and Bethzaira, rush over quietly to bring in another crab.

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