BugBoy:
Trip Report... Last Saturday I headed out to Netarts Bay for some crabbing. Planning on hitting the mid-day low tide. Was on the water about two hours before the low tide and tossed out two crab pots above the marina along the road, and just out of range of the folks fishing for crab from the shore. While the pots soaked I went up the bay to see if I could find some cockels (no luck). Went back and checked the pots after a good soak and didnt have any in one trap and just a couple females in another. Rinse and repeat for the rest of the day. Talking with folks on the water and at the ramp it was a slow day. Lots of smaller males and big females above the marina. I had picked the day because of the mellow tides. Most of the folks that did get crab were between the marina and the ocean (closer to the salt). Just a start to the winter crabbing season. The one keeper that I did manage to catch was a good appetizer when I got home!! I will be making a few more trips over this winter in hopes of having crab for the holidays!!
Stinger Hook:
Thanks for the report.
My wife and I had 19 keepers a few weeks ago in a relatively short time and most likely would have limited out if we had stayed a bit longer. Sounds like we dropped our pots in the same area as you did. We crabbed around high tide, not sure if that makes a difference. In general people were doing well that morning.
Matt M:
I was there about 3 weeks ago and we did extremely well also going from slack into high tide. Fished both near the rock wall/road and also some pots out a bit closer to the mouth, there's definitely shelves you have to find to find the crab when you're not fishing the flat area near the road. With both sets we did well and the fishing was the best early and tapered off as the tides came in fully. We had two boats (men's crabbing weekend) and we pulled 70 keepers for 7 Men. Ultimately WAY more crab than we wanted to clean and cook but we've got it down pretty well over the years.
duggerjosh:
What kind of pots are you using? I've seen some collapsible and some net options but I am curious what kind you use?
Matt M:
Not sure what Bugboy uses but I have had good luck with both the folding SMI crab pots, and I also have a Mckay "Kayak" Crabbing pot. The SMI pots are nice because they have a top door to get to the crab, whereas the common danielson folding traps you have to pull them out of one side of the pot which I didn't like as much, but some people prefer because they can dump out all the crab at once, I prefer to not have a mess of crab near my crotch on the kayak. The Mckay pot is nice because it's compact, It has always done just as well as any of the other pots for us.