Kayak crabbing report 10-10-10

It's been a while since I've posted, so I wanted to start back with a quick report from this last weekend out at the coast with the family at Siletz bay, OR. I had buddy from Bend, OR meet us in Lincoln City with his family in tow for some Kayak crabbing. Well, this was his second time ever in a kayak and first time ever kayak crabbing, so I had my hands full. It all started on SAT(the day from hell). The winds were rippin at 30-35 MPH straight out of the south, so as you can imagine, it was absolutely HORRIBLE. We did however spend 3 hours or so, attempting to crab. With the winds honking like they were, the day was dismall at best. I ended up loosing 1 crab ring and 1 brand new Promar col lapsable crab trap that were buried on bottom in the sand during the incoming tidal change. After fighting the 3 foot wind waves, loosing two crabbing devices and only catching 3 crabs, it was time to call it a day. After, enjoying a very hard earned crab appetizer on Saturday night, we decided to wait things out sunday morning to see what the weather had in store. The morning started out raining as was forecasted, but quickly cleared up at 10am. The high tide in Siletz on Sunday was forecasted at 2:18 Pm, so things were lining up nicely. We hit the Siletz at Taft park by 11am, launched by 11:30 and started dropping rings and pots by 11:35. I found a nice spot to drop, right off from the incoming current, but still very close to the inlet. I pulled my first ring up to check at 11:50 and found 4 nice fat males and 6 or so just under legal. The next ring was pulled at 12noon or so and found another 3 nice sized males and another 6 or so just under sized. Well this trend continued until we had our limit of 24 by 1:30. The crabbing was so awesome, we started upgrading bigger crabs back to the beach and releasing the smaller, but still legal crabs back into the bay. I was also able to retrieve my Promar out of the sand, but had to cut loose the ring. Enjoy the pics! Now get out and get some!!!!!

Nice report & pics Jammer.  Good on you for sticking it out in the rough weather.

Nice Report Jammer!

That must have made for one heck of a crab-feed. Did you try for Chinook while you were on the Siletz?

-Spot-

Way to go Jammer!  Glad you got that trap back   

Nice Report Jammer!

That must have made for one heck of a crab-feed. Did you try for Chinook while you were on the Siletz?

-Spot-

YES.... a major crab feast on Sunday. Then crab cakes again Monday night.
As far as chinook fishing was concerned, I didn't even attempt as I was having too much fun working the rings with my buddy. I did however speak to a couple different PB'ers that were trolling for Chinook and the report was "extremely slow". I didn't see a single net all day. Mostly PB crabbers out there(only 4 or 5) with a lot of limits. We were definitely the talk of Taft park crabbing from kayaks and all. The peeps were coming from all directions to gaze into our crab buckets. It was pretty funny. Everytime my friend and I would look towards the beach, our family's were surrounded by all kinds of people that wanted to look and touch the crabs. The Siletz bay at Taft park is a perfect place for family friendly crabbing, especially from yaks! Weather permitting...of course.

MMM, can almost taste it now!

Nice haul jammer.

Nice haul!  Looks tasty!

As far as chinook fishing was concerned, I didn't even attempt as I was having too much fun working the rings with my buddy.

Now I get why this dude ripped it at the Cape Dis. crab tourney. Looks like a blast. Excellent work.

Z

Ha!  Yeah he was pulling crab rings constantly at the crab tourney. 

Ha!  Yeah he was pulling crab rings constantly at the crab tourney. 

I do pull them like a maniac. Yea haaa. However, I found there are pro's and con's to crabbing with ring's vs. trap's. Rings are much more productive quickly as the crabs don't need to spend any time figuring out how to get in. They're also a lot easier to pull up, but you need to hustle them to the surface. I also like rings because I can easily carry all three with me at a time. Once I pull a ring to the surface with crabs I can pretty much just dump them into my yak and sort from there. Con's are that if you dont check them often, crab's will climb on board chowdown my bait and then take off. I don't like to give them a chance to dine and dash. As you guys have mentioned, I think the bigger con is due to the chance for crabs to dine'n dash from rings, you need to stay with them, which doesn't leave a lot of time for fishing. If i was alone or with friends that fished, I would rather drop traps and forget about them for a while, so I can also fish. For this trip out, the rings were "EN FUEGO" If anyone's up for returning with me soon, lets bring some traps and salmon rods, so we can really slay'em. Tight lines!

After talking to you and reading this post I think I am going to pick up a trap or two and head down to the coast tomorrow for some crabbing and salmon hunting. 

So, I picked up one trap and hit the Siletz yesterday.   I let my first drop sit for about an hour and ended up with over a dozen crabs in the trap, two legals.   After that the tide slowed and the crabs disappeared for a few hours.  The craps did not reappear until the tide started hauling again.  In five hours of crabbing I managed 4 legals, which was actually the perfect amount for dinner.
When I wasn't hauling my trap I was trolling for salmon.  This was a fruitless exercise, but I did get a good workout battling the tides and the wind.  I only saw one salmon landed all day and it was a small coho.  Not even the seals or sea lions appeared to be having any luck.