Puget Sound crabbing

[geo737]

Hi all, been awhile. Thought I'd post some snaps of our crabbing adventures from this summer. It was a good season, lots of dungeness was cooked and consumed and the freezer is stocked for the winter. This was our first time crabbing since we moved to the PNW, so we are happy with the success we've had plus its another reason to be out on the water

 

[maloopis]

Dinner time!

 

[NotHerDecision]

That looks amazing. I have not had the opportunity to do anything like that but would love it!


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[Bob & Sue]

Nice catch, what area are dropping your pots in? This is the first year in 5 yrs we've been almost skunked every time out. We usually have 70-90 in the freezer by now from area 11. Everyone I know have given up down here it's a ghost town for dungies from Alki Pt. to Commencement Bay. We might drop a few more pots before the season closes this weekend, haven't been out for 3 weeks hit a log coming in last time out boat just got back in the water last Friday.

 

[geo737]

we are in area 8-1 Deception Pass/ Saratoga Passage. we live on Whidbey Island and launch out of Oak Harbor. The pots are dropped in Crescent Harbor between Polnell Point and Strawberry Point- 1/4 mile or so off the shoreline. The water varies from 40-70 ft at high tide. We have had luck at both depths, only getting skunked once, but I think that was from our mistake- we reused the old bait that had already been in the water over 24 hrs and the scent was mostly gone. The other times we have limited or were just short of limit. There are clam beds in that area making it productive. This has been a good year for sport crabbing-it is my understanding from the one of the fella's I go out with is that the commercial and tribal crabbing was restricted from the area to give us other folks a chance. This year was the first time for my wife doing anything like crabbing- after the first catch, she's hooked and went and got her shell license and Puget Sound endorsement I grew up in Maryland and worked crab boats when I was young, so it was fun doing it again-forgot how much I missed it. We don't have a pot puller yet, but it is on the list-after watching us pull up 100' of rope and the pots, she tells me we need to get one LOL. I mentioned to her that if we're going after shrimp next year as she wants to, there will be one on the boat- I'm not pulling 300'400' of rope by hand. I believe this is the last week for the crab summer season- it ends on the 5th of Sept, but there's still enough time to get some tasty dungies..Come on up-we'll save some for you!

 

[Gofirstclass]

Ummmm if I was invited I'd bring the lemons and the butter!

Nice catch!

 

[geo737]

come on over! we have plenty of room on the patio and plenty of room in the fridge for various libations... its been fun. the hard part is getting up early to go out. we get on the water before 8AM. not too early for going out, but a bit challenging for me to get up that early. I dont get home from Everett until 1 AM or so then its 2 AM when I get in bed, and the guys I go out with show up at the house at 7 AM. Good thing I'm in a van pool going to work- at least I can get a 1 1/2 hr nap on the ride to work LOL.

 

[sandydlc]

This is the first year that we've tried crabbing and it's been with mixed results. We've caught several red rock crab in Port Ludlow, Pleasant Harbor, Friday Harbor and Roche Harbor. We have caught Dungeness in all 3 areas as well but the best so far was just outside the harbor in Roche Harbor this past weekend.

We use the Flex-fold crab pots because we don't have a lot of extra space on our boat for storage of crab pots. We only have one pot and I'm pretty generous with my bait (I use chicken plus a small scent basket of sardines) so I was pretty surprised this weekend when both of my overnight soaks resulted in exactly one female Dungeness and one large rock. When i pulled the pot on Sunday afternoon after about a 4 hour soak, I had a total of 13 crab - 3 keepers!! I was talking to a friend of mine who said that it's very possible that someone pulled my pot early in the morning before we got up (we're late risers...) and took our crab - leaving us with the rock. They said they've heard of it happening in the area before. As much as I enjoy crabbing I have to say I was incredibly disappointed that anyone would steal someone else's crab! Not only is it illegal, but to leave us with a large rock inside of our trap is just insulting.

Not sure that there is anything you could do to prevent something like this from happening beyond what we've already done which is to label our float with our information and I also have a second float with a flag pole (maybe it's attracting too much attention?).

Regardless we'll continue to crab and hope that those who may have taken our catch did it because they needed it more than we did.

Happy crabbing!

Sandy

 

[Boater420]

The rock seems like a message. Maybe you dropped your pot near another string or in another crabber's spot? Near a channel? If the pot was left empty I could see it being just some random boater looting your crab but the rock definitely has some meaning.

 

[Bob & Sue]

Yep I've been crabbing since the 60's this is one of the worst crabbing seasons on record. You may reconsider soaking your pots overnight most crab are in your pot within 3-4 hours, if you run out of bait they'll escape or if a pot is sitting on a small hill one of the doors will be open one last thing crab know how to open those doors I have all my doors weighted down with 1/4" round lead.

Make sure your pots are weighted down I use 15lbs of weight in our pots if they are moving with the current crab will stay away.

I'm on several other forums nobody is catching any good numbers this year. I just brought home all our crab gear from the marina might have a fire sale.

Good luck maybe we'll have a winter season.

 

[sandydlc]

The rock seems like a message. Maybe you dropped your pot near another string or in another crabber's spot? Near a channel? If the pot was left empty I could see it being just some random boater looting your crab but the rock definitely has some meaning.

The harbor where we set was littered with crab pots. We tried to go to the end of where the pots seemed to be placed but looked for deeper water. We weren't in the channel and I tried hard not to be too close to anyone else's pot but it was nearly impossible. The second night we set just outside the harbor, tucked behind this small island. There were two other pots near us but again I tried to find my own spot.

Is is there a protocol or things you should or shouldn't do when dropping your crab pot? I only have one which is why I'm baffled as to how I could have annoyed someone so much that they took my crab and left me with a rock (and the pot was placed in two very distinct locations). I'm unfamiliar with the politics of crabbing apparently!!

Thanks,
Sandy

 

[The Bill Collector]

We did great in Roche Harbor but south Puget Sound has sucked for the past 3 years....

 

[Boater420]

Sandy,

Fishermen are very territorial by nature. They really get mad when they feel encroached upon, especially if you're not one of them. More than likely they view your single pot as an intrusion by a non fisherman and sent you a subtle message so you'd get frustrated and move on to a new location.

I'd just try to find another spot far away from the other pots. Out of sight out of mind.

 

[sandydlc]

Yep I've been crabbing since the 60's this is one of the worst crabbing seasons on record. You may reconsider soaking your pots overnight most crab are in your pot within 3-4 hours, if you run out of bait they'll escape or if a pot is sitting on a small hill one of the doors will be open one last thing crab know how to open those doors I have all my doors weighted down with 1/4" round lead.

Make sure your pots are weighted down I use 15lbs of weight in our pots if they are moving with the current crab will stay away.

I'm on several other forums nobody is catching any good numbers this year. I just brought home all our crab gear from the marina might have a fire sale.

Good luck maybe we'll have a winter season.

I have my pot weighted with two 5 lb weights but that's a great suggestion to weight the doors with some lead to keep them from swaying open with the current.

Is there a winter season in South Puget Sound?

 

[sandydlc]

Sandy,

Fishermen are very territorial by nature. They really get mad when they feel encroached upon, especially if you're not one of them. More than likely they view your single pot as an intrusion by a non fisherman and sent you a subtle message so you'd get frustrated and move on to a new location.

I'd just try to find another spot far away from the other pots. Out of sight out of mind.

Good to know. I will definitely try to place my pot more carefully/thoughtfully next year. I've heard of guys in my club who've had their pots stolen near Port Townsend so I guess I'm lucky that I only received the "rock" warning and that they didn't take my whole pot set-up. Pulling up anyone else's pot is illegal so I'm surprised they would risk getting caught by WDFW just to send a message that they don't like your pot placement.

 

[geo737]

We were pretty lucky for our first year out- between my wife and I we pulled 40 keepers. The folks our way seem to be pretty reasonable with setting pots- we haven't heard of any real issues with catch being taken or pots being stolen. However, with that being said, we have the suspicion we were victims of someone else pulling and emptying our pots- we have had two occasions where there was a noticable loss of bait out of the bait cages (the band securing the cage was intact) and the bait was picked clean with no crab in the pot. Unfortunately there seems to be a general distrust of a group of commercial folks that were in the area towards the end of the season-but we weren't placing blame or making accusations-we were talking with some of the folks who have been crabbing in the area for more than a few years when this opinion was expressed. We wrote it off as learning the area and made notes for what to do for the next years season. As it was we had fun, caught some tasty crabs and enjoyed being on the water and the good weather.

 

[Bob & Sue]

I have my pot weighted with two 5 lb weights but that's a great suggestion to weight the doors with some lead to keep them from swaying open with the current.

Is there a winter season in South Puget Sound?

They won't announce a winter season till around the 1st of October after they do a check of the crab population in each area, they actually drop pots in certain areas to see what the conditions are plus tally up the totals of sports, commercial & tribal catches to determine if the quotas have been reached.

We were pretty lucky for our first year out- between my wife and I we pulled 40 keepers. The folks our way seem to be pretty reasonable with setting pots- we haven't heard of any real issues with catch being taken or pots being stolen. However, with that being said, we have the suspicion we were victims of someone else pulling and emptying our pots- we have had two occasions where there was a noticable loss of bait out of the bait cages (the band securing the cage was intact) and the bait was picked clean with no crab in the pot.

When there's a bad season everyone is blamed the Indians, Commercial, Sports it's mainly the poachers who are decimating everything from crab to geoducks.

They have busted several rings of folks who poach at night they keep anything under size, females, soft shells to sell to restaurants one ring was busted up North with 40 pots & 200 crabs.

The pots that had the bait picked clean probably at one time was full of crab if the baits gone the crab will escape google it crab open trap doors, you may want to reset those pots that are picked clean and pull them in 1-2 hours you may be surprised with a full pot of crab.

 

[geo737]

That's one of the things that caught us as odd-our area had one of the best seasons in the last couple years(so we were told). All but the last two times we went we limited our pots and the two others that went with us, limited as well. Late in the season, one would consider that the available legal catch is going to be limited. We returned a good bunch of undersized and females as is required to keep the population growing. I'm finding out as we engage in more like activities that there seems to be an attitude toward certain groups from folks around the area that may or may not be warranted, but so far we haven't been effected so we listen politely and take it with a grain of salt. Going home with a catch is fun, but watching my wife get excited when we pull the pots and having something in them (she guides the boat, I get to pull the pots LOL) and us enjoying our time together crabbing makes it a worthwhile venture.

 

[geo737]

Good news for Puget Sound crabbing- the WA fish and game opened the winter crab season this week starting Oct 7 or Oct 15 depending on what marine area you are in. Would be a nice addition to have some fresh Dungeness with Thanksgiving Supper this year.