June 13, 2013 — Pugh’s commercial crabbing efforts, along with a handful of others whose white fiberglass boats line a pier along Leipsic River, not only feed residents and visitors to this tiny fishing village but also its economy – something Pugh is ever focused on in his role as political steward.
When it comes time to catch crustaceans, though, this mayor’s office is the Delaware Bay.
It’s 4:12 a.m. The town is dark but for a few streetlamps. Quiet but for the crunch of gravel beneath the tires of a few pickup trucks. Reeds of windswept salt marsh sway along the edge of the roughly 17-mile-long river, among the deepest in the state, meandering through lush land and muddy embankments in Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge.
This is the hour when Leipsic’s commercial crabbers begin to stir.
By 4:30, Pugh and crew members Rich Jones and Bob Armbruster load crates of bunker, another name for menhaden, bought from a vendor in Virginia onto Hope So, the mayor’s 35-foot Evans boat.
“I enjoy the morning sunrise as much as anything,” says Pugh, who picked up crabbing at age 12. “As well as independent work, a quality most watermen enjoy.”
Just shy of 5 a.m., a turn of the ignition sparks a slow and steady rumble of inboard engines. The sun begins to rise behind a curtain of tall spiky tidal marsh flanking the brackish water some 200 yards wide in the tributary.
This area epitomizes Delaware’s diverse terrain.
Read the full story at Delaware Online