Here's Ed Parsons with a nice salmon he caught on Wednesday in 60-70 feet of water off of McClure's North end. Note the clear water in the picture. It takes a very skilled or very lucky fisherman to catch in clear water like that. Ed, you know who you are.
Or maybe I'm just snarky because I couldn't catch one yesterday. The weather didn't allow for a Cordell run and it was barely decent enough for a salmon mission in a small boat. My salmon mission rapidly devolved to a rockfish mission, and we got our limits and went home. I only heard of rockfish aboard the boats from here. I did hear of sardines and mackerel back by Hog Island if anyone sees a weather window for a bluefin run in the near future.
So, Dungeness season should be coming up, but the testing looks funny. Six of eleven tests have had Dungeness slightly over the "FDA Action Level" of 30 ppm. Interestingly, one of three tests on lobster in Southern California has also had a failure, yet lobster season opens tomorrow. Maybe that's a good sign for us, but I see three possible reasons why they are doing it:
1. Southern California gets treated different anyhow. Because of people or money, they get special treatment. Or, maybe because they can handle some toxic crap in their food. Have you seen their air?
2. No other state has closed a lobster season, so there's no precedent that could be shown that said they dropped the ball if someone got sick. Southern California red crab had way high domoic acid in the summer of 2015 but nobody got sick. Oregon closed their Dungeness season and boom! so did California.
3. Maybe the "FDA Action Level" is too low. To the best of my knowledge, nobody looked for domoic acid until recently. It would be interesting to know the "normal" variation in levels in years past. It seems very likely that we've been happily eating small amounts of this stuff all along. Nobody checked for it until someone got sick. I have heard through the grapevine that the State is reevaluating its procedures regarding the crab, and I hope that this is true. Otherwise, I have to make a trip to SoCal for lobster that's no safer or more dangerous than the Dungeness.
Willy, that was my question all last year - what did these crabs test in previous years and were they tested annually. Is there any recordings at all to compare with.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a big crabber but always look forward to the opener. Hope we get a green light.
Last Monday all we found was green clear water but there was salmon in there.....
Its not hard for me to imagine the wailing that would occur if someone/many got sick and the 'evil' state hadn't shut the season down...
ReplyDeleteI know someone that thought they were smarter than Oregon and ate dirty crab there. They were in the hospital for over a week...and they won't do it again.
Shut your hole already.
Im analytical so really just curious - not complaining......I think we can agree most all of us are brilliant compared to the "state".
ReplyDeletethe Shut your hole comment was directed at those whining to eat reportedly unsafe crabs, not anyone in particular
ReplyDeletemost of us are willing to blame the "state" or anyone else for the poor choices we make
good to be curious; it is important to have a historical context for the "safe" limit; given how risk averse our governments are, I would suspect that 30 widgets is a level where essentially nothing bad has been linked as opposed to a 50th percentile type approach
rokefin--I don't disagree, but that doesn't make it true; the state is made up of schmucks like you and me...good to keep that in mind
If the crab is unsafe, so's the lobster, but lobster is open. My point is, why?
ReplyDeleteHey "shut your hole" guy you sound like a government type. Wailing if someone got sick, wailing to eat unsafe crab,blaming the state for poor choices. You're right about one thing truth is hard to come buy, and you Sir are a schmuck.
ReplyDeleteWilly's right follow the money and power. So Cal will not close their Lobster season unless a lot of people get sick no matter what the D/A level is.
I don't know about the rest of you guys but i just wanna go crabbing. Knock the backs off shake the guts out boil or steam those suckers and they'll be just fine to eat.
ReplyDeleteExactly right Eric, clean before you cook.
ReplyDeleteWell our latest crab test is clean.
ReplyDelete