The crab bite is slowing down out in the ocean. Yesterday's totals from the four boats that went out, each with two guys, ranged from limits of mostly sport-legal crab on the high side to a low of four. Ten Mile had crab for me last weekend but only barely. We averaged 6 crabs per pot for seven pots on a three-hour soak. The rockfishing was good and we limited out while we waited for the crabs. Some of the best results were off the pier yesterday with at least two people catching limits and the others catching dinner. The early crabber today had three Dungeness by 8AM. Your results may vary, but these midweek pier guys are doing as well or better than the boaters.

We're having some of the nicest weather of the year and there is hardly anyone here to enjoy it. The crabbing on the pier slowed down again, probably due to the fast currents, but there's still a few keepers coming in. If you run down to Ten Mile be prepared to dodge a lot of buoys. I heard that there's 500 pots just by the Keyholes (Kehoe Beach). There's still good numbers of crab down there, but probably not for long.

Here's a firsthand report from last weekend: "My contribution today is spent 3 hours with 2 traps and a snare around Marker “10” and got skunked! (well aside from some undersize rock crab and a humongous starfish..).  How can crab be so fickle?" Unfortunately the crab is like wealth; it is unevenly distributed. 

Here's my sons, Cameron and Gage, with today's catch. Cam got a 4.5# copper and Gage caught his first ling (Cam's first gaff job). We limited out on Dungeness on Ten Mile and caught half limits of rockfish in two hours. Other folks did well on the rockfish in front of Bird Rock. There were some nice Dungeness caught on the pier this weekend, but as usual, some did well and others, not so much.

Apparently the crabs were just waiting for everyone to go home. I saw one limit come off the pier by lunchtime today and most of the other buckets have Dungeness in them as well. Steve Towne landed a limit from his boat in the bay before 9:00 AM and another boat landed four limits before 1:00 PM. The currents have slowed down this week, so that might have something to do with the good crabbing as well. Great weather today and more forecast for the weekend.