First, a report I just received from Kelley Roy: "Willy, just a note to let you know we crabbed yesterday in the outer bay.

We dropped nets shallow and deep with both depths getting crab but the shallow probably did a little better than the deep. Some nice, very nice jumbos in the mix.

 We were able to get 3 decent limits - easy day."  Very nice. The outer bay has been pretty consistent when you can fish it from here. There's some blank spots and some great spots and a lot of in-between spots. Make sure you put your hoops in a not blank spot before you give them a soak. I have heard that 30 to 50 feet of water has been pretty good. 

     Gage and I saw a narrow window to get out and fish before the wind hit today, so we went for it. Upon arriving at the Landing to launch we saw three wardens writing tickets to some snare casters. No truck though, as they came in a boat. Upon their departure, they stopped and pulled two hoops in front of the Boathouse and kept them. Cameron trotted down to the water and asked the question: Why? One of the buoys was improperly marked (I'm guessing no GOID numbers) and the other had been in the water. unpulled, for over two hours. So, if you were wondering, yes, they check. Maybe not as much as they should be checking, but that's another reason to pull your hoops early and often. I don't know what the snare guys got ticketed for but I've seen some crab shells in the dumpsters that looked borderline legal and I know that when you're not catching keepers those clickers look awful tempting. Don't do it. I won't even keep ones that are barely legal, as pretty much all crab gauges are made fast and cheap, and what if mine is a little different than the warden's gauge? Nope. 

    So with a rejuvenated fear of God and wardens, Gage and I headed out. We dropped our four hoops in 40ish feet of water between the TB buoy and Dillon Beach. We went back and pulled the first one as soon as we had the last one in the water and it had a couple of short Dungeness, so we considered the spot as not blank and reset the hoop. Then off to rockfish. The rockfish bit pretty good today when you were on top of a school, but staying on a school got more and more difficult as the narrow wind window turned out to be narrower than we thought. We had to give up on the 150' of water spots in front of Bird and headed in to 50-60 feet where we finished the day with 18 schoolie rockfish (blues, blacks, Deacons, yellowtail and a canary) and a lingcod. The timer was ticking down on our two hour maximum soak so we had to go pull our hoops. The hoops ended up producing 14 keeper Dungeness. We probably would have caught more if we had stayed and worked them but when you try to do two things you end up kind of half-assing both of them, I've found. Still more than we can eat, so it was a good day, and off the water before noon and the combers started. I still had to carefully wash all the accumulated salt off of my sunglasses when we got back. It got choppy today. Even finishing "early" we weren't done cleaning and cooking crab until almost 3:00PM. First world problems. 

Here's a report from yesterday that I missed (as usual). "

A tale of two crab trips. 11/9 I stayed with the fleet near marker 5. Not great, not terrible. 22 rock crabs, 3 dungies in five hours. Pockets of greatness in a sea of mediocrity was dead on. 

"Vulture" got brand a new Yamaha and a bunch of work done and I wasn't feeling bold enough to perform a shakedown run on the big pond.

Moving to the outer bay today was like flipping the "decent crab" switch. Every pot came up with at least one keeper male dungie or dinosaur male rock crab. I couldn't get a "zero" pot. By my second set, I had dungie limits. By set three, I was culling six + inch dungeness.

I won't say what part or particular depth of the outer bay, but the five guys in the 24ft cuddy-console know, and if you're reading this, 1) shhhhh....  2) I hope the juicy brined rock cod carcasses and juicy intel was very productive for you as it was for me. 

Also, new tasty treat. Dungie sized yellow rock crabs. I grew up in Marshall and could drive a skiff and run crab gear long before I could drive a car. I do not remember these ever being this big until this year. I remember them being palm size, and incorrectly assumed they were juvenile pacific rock crabs. You've been on the bay far longer than me, what's your 2 cents on these fellas? 

 - Wingle / Sam W " Nice work, Sam.  Those yellows show up periodically. Those are some big boys you caught. Surprisingly, they are currently considered closer to Dungeness than the red crab and are in the same genus as the Dungies. These things change, though, as science is not carved in stone and is closer to an argument, especially in the realm of taxonomy. Dungeness used to be Cancer magister but are now Metacarcinus magister. Yellows are Metacarcinus anthonyi (previously Cancer anthonyi) and red crab are and have been Cancer productus. Apparently taxonomists thought they were all cousins at one time (all Cancer crab) but they've now split them up and thrown yellows in with the Dungeness, because I guess coloration is more important than morphology? Whatever, all that matters to us sport fishermen is the yellows fall in with reds and rocks as far as regulations and have a separate 4" minimum size and 35 crab limit from the Dungeness. Until someone in CDFW decides different.  Your crab were monsters, as they only need to be 4" and yours were Dungy legal. Good work on all the crab, as not everybody was killing it like you.

    The weather has mostly stopped most folks from getting out of the bay this week. There were a few passable days and guys did well outside, again, when they looked around. Inside and outside the bay, crab are plentiful in patches. Don't drop on a patch and don't catch. Move early and often. 

 

     Somehow I missed this email from Nate Baker yesterday. Sorry Nate, but nice work on the critter catching. Here's his email: "Howdy Willy, 

Robert and I went out with Scott Mason and Andy Nickell today and spent the day meandering between Elephant and Abbotts. Wind and swell were pleasantly manageable and we scored 4 limits of crab, 20 rockfish and 1 ling (Robert's first). Tons of bait and birds down there. 

Best, 

Nate Baker"     I think Robert looks like he's ready to do it again. That's how you raise a kid, IMHO. Hook 'em on something as expensive as drugs but more socially acceptable, like fishing. The fishing industrial complex thanks you. And way to hook a kid. Fishing with Scott Mason is a bit of a contact sport, as it should be. We should all be so lucky as to go with Scott. 

      The last couple of days have been slower crabbing but not bad crabbing. Unsurprisingly, the inner bay where most boats have been confined has gotten less awesome. There's still crab but not as many as a few weeks back. It is still better than at almost any point last season. And bad news for commercial guys (this year; next year for all of us, maybe) but when I was driving back from Petaluma today I saw a bunch of humpback whales jumping in about 200-300 feet of water off of Bird Rock. When the splash draws your attention from miles away, it was a big splash. Whales now being bad for crabbing (commercial this year; maybe everybody next year...) seeing them from miles away seems like a bad crab omen. They sure looked cool, though. 

    Well, look at that! John Knott from Sacramento found a halibut that wasn't pinned under a crab hoop. This odds-beater weighed 26 pounds and was caught on a Gibbs minnow near Marker 5, where the crab buoys and crabbing boats compete for space. Nice work, John. Way to beat the odds by catching a halibut and not snagging a crab net. The not snagging may be more impressive.

     The hundreds of nets in the bay are producing crab but the numbers are definitely starting to slip. The number of boats pulling out early in the day with limits is dropping and the number of guys pulling out late in the day with long faces is increasing. The crabbing is still better than any time last year, but it ain't awesome. The outer bay has more crab than Tomales Bay but you still have to look for them there. There's pockets of greatness but acres of mediocrity and quite a bit of nothing. Keep moving. Unless you're catching. 

    

     Crabbing in the bay is starting to drop off but remains better than at almost any time last season. That's not saying much, as last year was pitiful. Almost everyone in a boat is getting a few keeper Dungeness at least. Heck, I even caught five in an hour on Thursday. One boat came by as I was landing number five and said he'd caught four so far in the channel. I went home, cooked my crab and cleaned the boat, and when I returned to the shore to share my crab guts with the birds I saw the same boater pulling out. After I left the tide turned and he and his crew put another 50 crab in the boat. I'd almost think I left too soon, until I started picking crab. Five was good. Tasted good, too. Bur the same boater, yesterday, only caught twenty on the tide turn. Now, twenty sounds pretty good for in the bay, and it is, but not to a boat full of people that had fifty the day before. Maybe if they'd been picking all those crab they'd feel different? Either way, today in or out of the bay was slower but didn't suck. For sure, if you go, drop your hoops where you think it's good. Then go back to the first and pull it. If there's some crab around you should have at least one in ten minutes. No crab, stack it. If you find a spot with crab, plug it with your hoops. If you don't, keep moving and try again. No matter how good a crabber you are, you can't catch what isn't there, and they seem to be clumped in smaller areas. Keep moving until you find them, then soak them up. Don't drop your hear and go fish for rockfish. It isn't that good of a crab year. You can fish after you locate the crab. Remember your priorities.