So, a lot of questions about Dungeness season. Welcome to the club. Uncertainty is your new certainty. At least until November 1. Let me attempt to put it in a large nutshell.

    In the regulations, crab traps are illegal to use starting one week before the scheduled opening of Dungeness season. This was initially established to prevent those folks that dropped their gear before the opening of Dungeness for red crab and pulled it on the opener and kept Dungeness. No gray area anymore if there ever was one. When do traps reopen? We may find out on November 1. 

   In the regulations, nets (both ring and conical) must be serviced every two hours or the nets are considered "abandoned." What does "abandoned" mean? I don't know. But I understand that you're supposed to pull your net (ring or conical) every two hours or else...

   Will it be net (ring or conical) only or will traps be okay? Nobody knows. Chuck Bonham is the Director of CDFW and literally gets to choose. If he chooses that we open for traps even with whales around and whales or turtles get entangled then the season could get shut down for three years. So we don't want him to pick us opening if we shouldn't, even though there's a lot of pressure to. If he picks that we stay shut down (no Dungeness, period) and the whales bail out and we open a few weeks later, well, it sucks for people that made plans, but hey, maybe you get to crab next year, too. When you write your mean letter to Mr. Bonham please consider your future you. You in a year or two may also want to crab. Please also know that our bureaucrats are pretty happy with the status quo most of the time and were totally prepared to sit on their thumbs until the Center for Biological Diversity sued. Then it was, as was spoken in Blazing Saddles, " We have to save our phoney-baloney jobs, gentlemen!" I'm not complaining, this is just a statement of fact. This is how the process works. Most people are prepared to sit idly until someone cattle-prods them. I have burn marks on my tookus. I know. And I'm not employed by the state. To sum up, we will be better off, in my opinion, if the powers that be hedge toward limiting our opportunities in the short term in order to maximize our opportunities in the long term. I have screwed over future me a number of times and he remembers.

    So, what's going to happen? Dunno. That is up to Charleton Bonham to decide and announce on November 1. He's got pressure from both sides. He's earning his pay this week. It seems to me that allowing nets and keeping traps closed in our area lets a lot of pressure blow off while allowing some some crab to be caught. A good compromise, no matter what the books say, has all parties involved dissatisfied about the same amount. I'm familiar with compromise and this one doesn't seem like the worst one.  That said, if it comes to nets for the opener (and probably the month of November if it comes to it) your Outdoor Pro Shop in Cotati has a large supply at a reasonable price (about half of Amazon's price. No shipping!). I have no affiliation with them (aside from buying a lot of gear there, and I own a tackle shop) but their prices are good and they have some product. When containers went from $2000 to $25000 a lot of shops chickened out. Whether you like them or not, they didn't chicken out and they have stuff. Given the situation, you may see me or Gage in there buying ring nets on the 1st or 2nd.  I am not a good enough crabber to catch keepers once the commercials open, so if there's a net season prior to the commercial season, I'm in.