Non-yak report- Bodega Bay crabbing 11/11

This should be a report from pyramid lake, but the coast and all of its delicacies won out. An old friend from college and I saw a weather window Friday that we thought may permit us to crab from his 11’ Boston Whaler. We brought the yaks just in case, but Fridays weather was beautiful allowing for some comfortable crabbing near the Estero.

We started off in 70’ just northeast of the red buoy. We baited up with chicken and a packet of this years salmon I got a bad seal on that had freezer burned. 40 minute soaks. Our first string of 5 hoops yielded one jumbo, in the home made hoop no less!

We continued to leap frog and try different depths. By our third pull of the string we had 5 keepers. Each pull was a mixed bag. Some hoops came up empty, others with a handful of shorts, none had more than 2 keepers at a time. We got very few rock crab.  Since the weather was playing nice on the inside, we moved further down towards the Estero mouth and repeated our process for another 6 good sized dungeness. Lots more juvenile crabs in those soaks.

Next time I’ll try some deeper sets, we never got deeper than 90’, and I’d like to try longer soaks too, seemed like that produced good results for most of the boaters who reported on coast side and that we talked to at the Doran launch.

Heard north around the head was killer with easy limits of big crab. Out in front of Carmet, and Salmon creek seemed to be good spots provided you could get there.

We ate like kings at a little place we had access to along salmon creek. It’s a simple little home that is sort of a step up from camping, but it did the trick. Fresh boiled crab with a veggies medley Friday night, then a real feast sat when we decided to stay in and rest the sore muscles.

BBQ rock cod, salmon, oysters, crab cakes and clam chowder all tasted amazing! The chowder came from spud point, and was a fantastic early lunch before we got started prepping the rest of the feast. I’m looking forward to the next outing, had a blast on “my opener”.

Doesn't get much better than that. Sounds like a great outing. Those crab cakes look phenomenal   

Thank you for the great report.

Paul

BBQ rock cod, salmon, oysters, crab cakes and clam chowder all tasted amazing!

Drooling! Thanks for the report and pics

Good Times.  And those crab cakes look pro fo sho.   

thanks for the report, I think I saw you guys heading out on Friday - noticed the size of the boat.

looks like a great time!

Been reading everyone else's crab reports all morning, looks like many got out and most found some bugs. Really cool to see all of the different recipes folks are using. I've never made crab cakes the same way twice, for me, It's an exercise in "what do we have, and what tastes good?" This one was simple because we didn't have much in the way of ingredients. We did have some yellow bell pepper and onion, those got chopped and sautéed in butter. I did bring some panko and eggs...so in they all go with some simple seasonings. The only "Creative" thing with this batch that I may repeat, was using some powdered mashed potato to firm things up as I formed each pattie. I think it helped when it came time to brown on the camp stove in more melted butter.

I tried making a California roll last night and well...I need some practice. Edible, but very ugly!

Let see some more of those crab recipes, I love trying new things.


*BBT, I felt a little bit crazy heading out in the little Whaler. We both suited up in wetsuits and wore life jackets, and agreed to head in if conditions got at all sporty. We got lucky with a great day of weather, but I'm not sure I'm chomping at the bit to try that again, it was a very rough ride even in the small wind and boat waves. We chose not to try our luck Sat in the slightly worsened conditions, which I was grateful for really...I am still very sore from the exertion from Fridays efforts