License records of the blue crab fisheries, Virginia and Maryland, 1898-1960

Gear used in the Virginia and Maryland blue crab fisheries have been regulated since 1989. Numbers of fishermen and kinds of fishing devices have been reported in official state publications, in Virginia from 1899 through 1941 and in Maryland from 1916 to date. Unfortunately, these reports have sometimes been incomplete. The fact that Virginia licenses have been reported by fiscal year and Maryland\u27s by calendar year, has made analysis and comparison difficult. The most complete Virginia record was extracted from files of the Commission of Fisheries, and is made available here for the first time, for the calendar years 1920 to date