The Chesapeake Bay’s blue crab stock is down 70 percent since 1990 due to overfishing and water pollution, according to Virginia and Maryland fisheries managers in a CNN online report yesterday.

Blue claws are a huge part of the Jersey Shore dining scene, even though we have our own Jersey blue claw crab catch. The Maryland crabs were always a bigger, meatier crab, and hammer-wielding aficionados would almost always go with the Maryland blue claws over the Jersey variety.

Not anymore.

“Maryland crabs are $115 a bushel and you can get the Jersey crabs for $70, $75 a bushel, and the Jerseys are so nice this year that there’s no difference between them (and the Maryland crabs). Usually the Maryland crab is the larger and fatter crab, but not now,” said Mike Monichetti Jr., whose family has owned and operated Mike’s Seafood for three generations and has been in the fish business for more than 100 years. Mike’s is on the bay, just off the bridge into Sea Isle, at 4222 Park Road. They can be reached at 609-263-3458.

Mike said the season started off slow, but crabbers have been enjoying a bumper crop over the past few weeks.

“The beginning was lean but now they’re coming on like gangbusters. They’re coming out of Barnegat Bay. Barnegat Bay is very thick with crabs, and they’re large crabs,” he said.

The quality and numbers are so good that Jersey crabs are being shipped in record numbers to what Mike called the Maryland “picking houses,” where they clean the meat out of the crabs and package them in the one-pound containers you see in fish markets and grocery stores.

“Over the last five years, more Jersey crabs than ever are going to Maryland,” Mike said.

So why even bother with selling Maryland crabs anymore?

Loyalty.

“Just because those (Maryland crabbers) are having a rough time doesn’t mean we should abandon them. They have to make a living, too,” he said. “We bought from them for decades, when things were good, and now when things are on a downturn. I can’t just turn my back on them.”