Here's a nice pile of fish caught by Eddie Kim last Friday. Last year Eddie would have allowed himself to be distracted by the Dungeness opener, but this year Mr. Kim has gone fish-loco. More crab for the rest of us, I guess. Eddie's report:"Great day of fishing 🎣 Tried for 2 more lings but no go." I think you went home with plenty. Nice work.
Here's report from Lance Bain: "Lance Bain from Napa, Not sure what the deal is but the crabbing is getting better, after a bunch of crabs on the smaller size opening weekend (still limits), pulled six pots for 35 crab in the outer-bay, close to a three pound average on the twenty in the attached Photo. Hearing the same report now up and down the cost from friends." They're definitely running on the large side this year. I'd kinda like to see a few smaller ones in the mix for next year, but it's hard to complain when the big boys are in the pots.
Jeff Hunter sent in these pics and note:"Plenty of healthy ones on Veterans Day in the bay for me and my family...gotta find the honey hole though. The 8" dinosaur was caught by my wife on a snare! Jeff" Looks like Jeff found the honey hole. You need to work that gear and find the right spot. If you aren't catching, move. No point in trying to catch crabs that aren't there. And there's way more "not there" spots than honey holes.
Gage would like everyone to know that he's taking a break from his striper efforts to concentrate on Dungeness. These seven were caught just south of the pier.
Here's a video that was sent in last week. at one point you can see a Dungeness walk up to the pot and then leave, as he didn't want to hang out with the reds already in the trap. Also, at the 27 minute mark, a Dungeness tries and fails to get in the trap. Is it bad when the crabs are too big for your pot?The other interesting part of this video (to me) is seeing how many nice sized perch there are across the bay. Doug S. sent a report with the video:"We made a video of our Crab Pot on Monday 11/6 hoping to catch some dungeness but only managed to get some Red Crab in the pot but got 6 dungeness in our hoop nets. It is a long video but interesting to see it from the water perspective. Feel free to share if you like. Definitely was not hot on the Dungeness this year compared to the 18 we got on the Monday after opening weekend last year."
The video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
That's an impressive pile of rockfish.i totally agree with the consensus on this crab season. It started slow with a number of smallish crab but the second weekend produced an abundance of big guys.i just hope there's a few left for thanksgiving.
ReplyDeleteHas anyone been dropping pots in Tomales bay? I'm wanting to try my hand at crabbing, but need the right conditions for my little 12 footer to go anywhere outside of there.
ReplyDeleteI've worked Tamales a couple of times and it can be hit or miss, you should be able to pull a dinner out of there.
ReplyDeleteCheck with the Lawson's boat house and they can direct you to a productive area.
Yes, there's Dungeness in the bay. It's not the best year, but you have a chance if you have good gear, good bait, and you work your gear hard, moving from non-productive spots to find good ones. It ain't easy, but it is possible. Next year will be worse crabbing, so this is a better year to learn.
ReplyDeleteUse chicken - seems to be the ticket for us.
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