Crab reports fron the bay have been almost universally bad, but a few guys have figured out some tricks and caught some decent numbers of Dungeness. I heard of one boat with 45 on the opener. The last few days a couple of boats landed 17 to 40 crab. Mostly people had 2 to 10 Dungeness.  The ocean has many crab out deeper but getting there from here has been a problem. Big seas have shut down the bay. There may be a window tomorrow but it is short. There were a few halibut caught over the last few days but hundreds of buoys made halibut fishing difficult. 

   The boats that have been getting out of Bodega have found good crab in sandy spots from 80 to 200 feet of water. Deeper is probably better as the warm water probably isn't happy for Dungeness.  Unlucky for them, since they don't have fish tails and need to walk their way to safety. Deeper is closer than north, so probably deeper they went. And yet the 6-packs are catching bonito while pulling Dungeness gear, so I guess those legs aren't working fast enough. 

   Dungeness opening results?  Meh. A LOT of effort. Not too much catching inside the bay, at least. Best report I heard was a boat with 35 Dungeness.  Next best was 12. Less after that. I heard one report from the outer bay with a catch total of seven keepers.  No bueno. The shore snares who stayed up all night did well at first but by dawn's early light their catching was mostly over as well. Apparently, the many crab being caught from shore were mostly the same hundred crabs being chucked back in. Once they were kept the catching slowed dramatically. 

   Is that it for the Dungeness? I'd guess no. My experience is that the only constant is change, and one day of data doesn't dictate the season. And it's a wierd year. Water temps are super high for November. Crab can't move around like fish to follow the "right" conditions but they can sure not feed if they're unhappy. We shall see. Hopefully we get some weather this month where we can go see. Maybe deep? Maybe belly up? Time will tell.

   Here's a good report. Joe Winn and crew got tired of dodging boats and floating crab rope, so they went farther back into the bay and found some halibut. The ocean water is toasty, probably not the best for Dungeness but it keeps the halibut active. 

    So we are go for Dungeness here, starting at 12:01 am tomorrow. Inside Tomales Bay should be fine.  Getting outside from here could be fatal. You want to crab outside Tomales Bay, go to Bodega. The ocean will be bumpy. Avoid shallow water. Inside Tomales there's some crab. Probably less than it seems as we're likely seeing the same crab caught time after time, but there's not none. Hopefully I'm posting pictures of lots of crab tomorrow. Just be safe.

    There was another round of picking straws and this time the short straw got pulled by Eureka. No crabbing for them. Secret domoic acid tests came up too high.  There's still time for them to decide thar our area is too high. No crab test results have been published for Eureka or Bodega areas, so I guess we're still up for grabs. We'll know for sure in 24 hours. As things stand the extreme shallows seem to be holding crab, as many Dungeness have been caught and released recently. Many of those crab could be the same crab released many times, but there's some crab for sure. The weather looks a bit sketchy from Tomales bay, as big swells may shut us down, but smart, skilled boaters can probably run out of Bodega Bay over the weekend. But be smart. If unsure, follow someone at a distance.