Linda Mar Crabs 1-21-06

Had a great crabbing expedition at Linda Mar this Saturday. Maybe we were crazy....I must say looking at the surf at 8am, I was not to thrilled at the idea of loosing equipment, getting rolled over and the rest.
My buddies Ron and John arrived a few minutes after me and we started gearing up. I must admit I was a bit nervous. You could see the surfers move from left to right and back..That told me that the swells were changing direction but they did not seem to calm down.
We were ready to brave the surf entry and John sailed on on the left side of the beach. Made it through one nice roller, arms high...no problem. He made it through another nice one and off he went between the surfers and beyond the surf line, I went after him with Ron, we made one small breaker but then got really smashed by the next one, I rolled over and was pushed back up the beach. I look up and see Ron going under also. We both righted our kayaks and retreated to the beach to empty our boats. I had a bit of water in the galley.
Off we go for a second try...This time, we were lucky we had gone through a small set.
We went off to the out and dunked our hoops in 45 feet of water. Rain started falling, fog was settling in but then within a 15 minutes or so, everything cleared up. First the current was pulling us out then pulling us into the bay.
Our first hoop pulls did not yield anything. We tried to old vermilion carcasses for bait, we tried chicken legs, nothing much at first then we moved further in the middle of the bay. Ron and John started pulling nice loads. I got quite a few rock crabs but then started to get nice dungies also. At one point my hoop must have had 10 rock crabs in it and just one Dungie but what a Dungie! It was big!
It was time to get back....We got our gear tied on the kayaks, got our stuff stowed away in the hatches and paddled back. We were nervous about the exit knowing by experience that we might roll over again. We found a spot right in between surfer pods which seemed to be a bit calmer. It was just an impression, as we approached the shore, a big roller crashed in front of us showing its nasty green glassy thundering back to us. Ron had gone back first and later told us that he had been rolled by a wave and got a bit tangled in his lanyards as he was trying to right his boat.
We started surfing the wave that was carrying us back to shore, I tried to steer my boat straight but of course it veered to the right and I went for a dunk. I am glad that my hoops were solidly tied down. I did not loose anything.
As you can see on the pics were all pretty happy at the prospect of having crab feasts and giving some to friends and family.
Alain

Nice report and pics! I miss Linda Mar....I really hope the salmon show up this year 

Good job guys, Mooch and i have a great story landing at Linda Mar .  Did you guys launch from the  South side of the creek? It look pretty good on Saturday and shouldn't have given you so many problems.  Sunday the water looked great, would have made for easy launching and landing.  A good practice day!

We launched just to the right side of the creek, it looked good overall but there were some big sets in between. Ron and I got hit by the bigger set.
Alain

Alain, good report.  Nice catch...

Henry

Alain, Ron, John... That's a nice bunch of crabs! ... considering you guys were only using hoops instead of traps.
It's nice to know the crabbing is still decent at Linda Mar.  I need to get out there too.  I'm beginining to crave crab. 

Hey Chuck,
I must say it's thank to you that we got the ideas and techniques....looking at your great post on crabbing. As you know I had purchased the Promar traps but I had made a mistake and had purchased the PR-101 instead of PR-102, not a big diff except for the mesh size which is way too small on the PR-101. Another thing I had noticed with the traps was that you need to keep them down on the bottom with additional weights if you want them to stay upright with current, surge etc.....Finally, we noticed that with the hoops, just the fact that we have to check them every 15 minutes or so makes for added excitement of the catch.
I am really amazed at the speed at which crabs smell the bait and travel to the trap very fast. This is also great when we know we cannot fish for anything to speak of, we can always hang around, shoot the breeze, paddle and then check the first hoop, check the second hoop and start over again.
I would be interested in knowing how crabs can be preserved after the catch...Some people keep them alive for a couple of days in the fridge others cook them immediately and then freeze them..etc...Any other techniques?
Alain

I would be interested in knowing how crabs can be preserved after the catch...Some people keep them alive for a couple of days in the fridge others cook them immediately and then freeze them..etc...Any other techniques?
Alain

Some big grocery stores sell Dungies that have been cooked and frozen whole.  They're okay, but not a good a fresh cooked crab.  Whole frozen crabs just need to thawed in the fridge or steamed prior to eating.  If you really have lots of left over crabs, I would take the time to peel'em, vacuum pack, and freeze the meat for later use in crab cakes, crab cocktails, California Rolls, or any other recipe calling for crab meat.

Damn... I'm getting hungry just typing this.

hi guys, i am new here! nice board!

alain, thanks for the nice posting. next time you have a surplus i'll bring my bib and modified crab fork (plastic fork with two missing prongs) and finish em off for you. would be such a shame to let em get old: O )

we should go again soon, swells comin up but looks like its dropping for the weekend.

maybe next time i can show you how stable my scupper pro is. i have been practicing standing on it so as not to flip it like i did at linda mar. i dont think Ocean Kayak wants me to be their PR person.

next time i do that stuff i'll bring outriggers.

Thanks!

John