Last weekend marked the start of the Dungeness Crab season in the
San Juan Islands.
Crabbers everywhere like to keep their best crabbing locations to themselves, we mark GPS coordinates, measure the depths and generally make a science out of it. So armed with our licenses, crab pots, bait, GPS and much enthusiasm we ventured forth in our boat to our favorite and NOW not so secret crabbing spot.
We took the boat to a place called "Spencer Spit" on Lopez Island. What a beautiful place enjoyed by boaters, residents and campers alike. We love it because you can catch a nice lot of crab, the anchorage is calm, the beach has firepits for those Beach BBQs, making Smores (YUM), and enjoying the fantastic sunsets. The kids and adults like walking the beach and building driftwood castles and shelters along the beach. What fun!!
Spencer Spit Beach
Pulling the Crab Pots
Here is Larry pulling up a crab pot. He is using the manual method which plays hell on your back as typically you can have over 20 crabs in one pot. The weight of the crabs plus the pot weight can be substantial.
Don't get carried away we can't keep all those crab. In Washington we have to throw back the girls for further breeding and only boys over 6.25 inches are "Keepers".
We have the pots in this location at about a depth of 30-35 feet with 100 ft of lead line, that is a lot of pulling. After a weekend of pulling crab pots 3 times a day times 2 pots, we wish we had an electric pot puller like those fancy boats. Oh Well for now Larry is it!
After we place the crab pots we wait at least 3 hours and after the last "pull" of the day we leave them in overnight.
DRUM ROLL
Now for the fun bit. What do we have in the pot. It is like opening gifts, you can hardly wait to see what you have.
Here is a picture of one of the pots and the crabs. The crab in the front corner is a boy and a big one. We probably kept about 3 boys out of this pot.
Next, we re-bait the pot and then back down into the depths to do more work.
APRES' CRABBING
Well after an arduous day of crabbing. Yes, we have to read, relax, walk on the beach and generally bide our time until the crabs are ready to pull out of the water. PHEW!!
We head Into the beach for a fire and cocktails.
Here I am with Buster (our dog), a nice fire and icy beverage looking forward to a dinner of fresh crab, dipped in melted butter with a nice salad and crusty Garlic Bread.
AND that's it folks, the tales of crabbing in the beautiful San Juan Islands, WA
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