Photo courtesy Barrier Island Eco-Tours

With little more than a hand line and chicken neck, you can catch your own crab dinner at South Carolina’s Capers Island State Heritage Preserve.

Barrier Island Eco Tours takes groups out to sea by boat while explaining the life of blue crabs. Soon visitors are encouraged to lower hand lines with chicken necks as bait to see if they feel a tug from a hungry crustacean.

By the end of the tour, visitors will know how to catch, clean and cook crabs using traditional techniques. After a few hours of crab fishing, the group sails to the beaches of Capers Island for a crab boil and a meal of extremely fresh seafood.

If guests opt for Barrier Island Eco Tours’ All Inclusive tour, the group can choose its own adventure of crabbing, kayaking, fishing, swimming or relaxing on the beach. Together, the group dines on the beach for a lunch cookout before heading back.

Not far up the coast from Charleston, the island remains one of the few undeveloped barrier islands in South Carolina. A walk along the beach can uncover some of the marsh’s seabirds, bald eagles, loggerhead turtles or dolphins playing in the ocean.

www.nature-tours.com