Sledging it with the Sledgend for the Crab Opener at Doran 10-31-12 - 11/6/12

Been thinking about this weekend since Crabfest way back in January, where afterwards I booked a site at Doran for the crab openening weekend and let a few of my good friends know they should do the same!  Sledge and I decided to go in a couple days early with Kiet /Fried Bluegill (post already man!) and get a couple first come first serve spots so we could get even more friends to join in the fun for the weekend. 

Setup camp in the rain, like all good Stormtroopers do  then we decided that we would do some rock crabbing and searching for bait for our traps on Thursday morning to pass the time.  We were treated to such beautiful sunrises each morning as we gathered up our gear and set out to the water. 

We made out really well with the rock crab, scoring huge males, and tossing back the smaller and femals sticking to around 6"ers was pretty steaddy picking off the jetty.  We found some pelicans working bait and tried to score some for ourselfs, but I lost the one hit that I got, called it a day for bait fishing and went back to camp to eat some crab.  Our Crab-O-Lantern kept them happy until they were dropped into the pot for dinner   

Friday we pulled more pots and searched for more bait.  Picked up my first glimpse of the dungies and the ones I had pull were pretty good sized males for the most part.  We worked the jetty looking for more bait but nothing but a couple very small rockfish that I tossed back.  After getting a few good rock crab for an evening appetizer, we chilled back at camp and cooked up some grub with the others that started arriving.  Boy, Str8fishing's Japanese Pizza was incredible, hard to describe beyond WOW!    SCTrace and PondPoacher served up some awesome skirt steak and we cracked crab and ate some fried raviolis that Sara made   

When around 11:30 rolled around we dragged the rest of our gear down to the beach and launched under moonlight.  It was really cool being out there late at night and running into people in the dark    I made a line of my three hoops out into the 20fow range and then paddled around and checked out how others were doing.  after about a 30 min soak I checked my first ring and had nothing to show for it. Hummmm... well, i'll let them go another 30 before checking the other two.  Nutting.  On my last pull I got one keeper, and tossed him in the bag and headded for shore.  We had like 4 total crab and boy, they tasted great 

Saturday I think I got two more legals, and a bunch of rock crab, mostly females, and quite a few "missing claws".     It pretty much was the same the rest of the time there for me until we left.  Sledge however was doing a pretty good hit or miss with a 9 keeper pull after an overnight soak, and a couple 5-6 pot pulls we had plenty of crab to eat and share.  On Monday night we fried up some abalone and had some abalone and crab chowder with our new camping neighbors and had a great time.   

 

I also took a lot of pics of peoples crab floats for the heck of it.  Enjoy! 

 

 

 

Finally a use for my old propane tanks!

Awesome report Al!  I had a great time chillin with you all and can't wait to do it again.  Awesome pictures and some of those floats are FREAKIN HILARIOUS!!!

 

Looks like a good time with a lot of good people. I miss u guys.

Thanks for the report and the laughs 

Good times great taste and a lot of laughs Can't wait till next year

And I thought kayaks were the only thing "ghetto'd!" Those floats are hilarious Al. Great to see you ahd a great time. I will be up there with my daughter this weekend giving it the ole college try! Hopefully score a fe win the few hours we will have on the water.

Anyone find any waders?

Wow, a whole 6 responses, and one was to find some lost waders...    Guess there have been a few too many crabbing reports lately.