Late Report: 11/5 HMB Crabbing & Fishing

Well, not a kayak report, but a report nonetheless.  Its been 6 long weeks since I've been out on the water (Lake Mendo), so kayak or not, I had to get out.

Jumped on a friends boat and motored out to flat calm seas Sat AM.  Ran up to the Montara area and dropped 4 square traps in 160ft at 8am.

Headed in to shallow water by the Colorado Reef for some bottomfishing.  The action was rather slow, with a fish here and there.  We fished till noon then had lunch.  Our bag consisted of 3 cabs and about 8 rockfish.  The highlight for me was a 24" cab.  It was a nice fish.

After downing some deli sandwiches and soaking up the sun in T shirts, we put on our jackets and ran to the traps.  

Pulling up the first one was really tough.  As it got to color, I new why.  It was filled with approx 20+ crabs, with about 16 keepers.  This was typical for the other 3 traps.  Emptying a trap with that much crab was a tedious task.  Sorting and not losing count was also challenging.

Overall, we couldn't have had a better day.  The weather was phenominal and last nights dinner even better.

Looking forward to doing this again.

Stuart

wow!!  

LET THE GAMES BEGIN!

Stuart, What bait did you use for crabbing. It turned out to be so successful.

Emptying a trap with that much crab was a tedious task.

 Ahhh I feel so sorry for you Stuart , hey at least you weren't in a kayak trying to bring up that load . Way to go great report, even better catch. Can't get much better than a fresh crab dinner .

I can vouch for the awesome dinner. The cab and crabs were great. My craving for fresh crab has been soooooo satisfied. Thanks again for having us over Stu...

Freddie

.... After telling my wife about Stu's bountiful crab catch, she asked me why I didn't go out crabbing.  She really was really in the mood for crab.  She said if I had told her it was the crab season opener this weekend, she would have insisted that I go out and drop some traps. DAMN.... women are so unpredictable.  And I thought she wanted me to stay home Saturday to do yard work.  I could have been out crabbing and having fun.  Instead I was moving heavy-ass boulders by hand all day long !!!!

EyeatBay,
We dropped 4 traps.  3 had a surf & turf cocktail (the backbone from some whole fryer’s and squid).  The other had a salmon head.  All traps were filled with crab about the same, so I don’t think the crabs were too picky.  Based on conversations with others, our results were pretty typical.  I was surprised that we could have had our limits with only 2 traps.

In all traps, I had the bait attatched to the bottom in the center.  I’ve hung my bait before, but it seems to produce better on the bottom.

Because we were doing a short soak, I left the bait in a plastic mesh (sort of like the covering on rain gutters) and zip tied it down.  This allows the scent to really dissipate into the water (versus bait jars).  With the salmon head, I just used wire to anchor it down.

Pulling up was a biaaatch!!!  One thing that helped was that they had an anchor pulley on the bow of the boat.  This helped out a lot, because we put 10-12lb of lead in each trap.

If you are going in a kayak, there are some OK spots South/SW out of the harbor (40ft) and I suspect the middle of Linda Mar should also produce well.

Stuart

Stuart isn't it technically illegal to pull crab traps with rockfish on board in water over 120'. I know there is an exception for boats in transit, but isn't a trap considered "Fishing Gear"?

These fish may be possessed in waters deeper than specified only aboard vessels in transit with no fishing gear in the water.

Mike,

Interesting point.  I know a lot of guys do the combo trips without ever giving thought of pulling traps over 120ft.  I never thought about that.  One could argue that they are crabbing and not fishing (ie no hooks) or trying to catch rockfish in the deeper water.
I would like to know the official ruling on this one.

Stuart

Since you have to have a Fishing License to crab I would guess that  Traps are considered Fishing Gear????

Stuart submitted my question to ask the Warden on coastside.

Stuart isn't it technically illegal to pull crab traps with rockfish on board in water over 120'. I know there is an exception for boats in transit, but isn't a trap considered "Fishing Gear

And here is his answer.

Yes, a crab trap is fishing gear, because under the definition of fish; "F&G Code 45, "Fish" means wild fish, mollusks, crustaceans, invertebrates, or amphibians, including any part, spawn, or ova thereof." Therefore, a crab is a fish and the gear used to take a crab is fishing gear. Therefore, it would be against the law to be fishing with your crab fishing gear in water deeper that 120 feet when it is unlawful to possess rockfish or lingcod while fishing in water deeper than 120 feet.

This is the same as the discussion we had previously about fishing in San Francisco Bay, where it is illegal to take or possess Dungeness crab. If you have Dungeness crab on board your boat when you come into the bay, you cannot stop to fish for other species of fish.