We got crabs at Muir beach

Beautiful day, Got there at 8 something, Gary/SandMan, Craig and myself. Craig shot out of site heading for 70 ft, we stayed in a half mile out in 45 feet, droped our stuff, I just had a ring, Gary a box trap. Fished in prime rf habitat for nothing, checked our traps every hour or so for LOTS of crabs, dungies, and reds, had keepers in every pull, wound up with 5 dungies and a huge red.
I know the others got at least some too. I give Muir a thumbs up! Ben

Yumm....

I used the strper carcass from Sunday for bait.

nice ben 
good to go this weekend

good work, great report!

Great report Ben and nice pics!!!  Sorry to hear you did not get any RF.  How was the waves on the way in and out at Muir Beach?

-Ron

Nice catch!

Easy launch.

All right.  Nice catch!  I hope Craig did as well as you did.  Too bad about the RF.  I am going to try crabbing out of Monterey tomorrow.  I will let you all know how it goes.

Thanks Etienne!  Please share a report and hope you do well!

I am so glad that Ben and Gary were there and did well, while I went off on a wild goose (sic) chase.   I had a bit of a hard time today...  First of all, the 10 fathom curve goes FOREVER off Muir beach....  I wanted 70' and after 2.5 miles of paddling with 30 lbs of crab gear bungeed to the bow (sadly my collapsible pots did not fit below as I had hoped), I gave up and dropped pots by where the commies were dropping some of theirs at 62 FOW.  By then it was 10.15am and we said we'd be in by 1pm, so I knew I was in for very little.

Secondly, I put bait squid in Scotty bait jars, which are great for preserving bait for days, but awful for quick returns, as the scent/oil seeps out very slowly from those jars.  Not a good short-term attractant.  I chatted a bit with a couple PB's on the water - nice guys - they filled me in on this.  The salmon collars I was going to tie inside the traps had smelled bad this morning, so I had nixed them.  Bummer.

I ended up with about 9 miles of paddling, 20 minutes of fishing time for naught, and 1 keeper dungie, good sized but not quite a jumbo.  Also in pots were 2 rock crab and 1 undersized dungie.

I was so beat after pulling pots (I have 11 lbs of lead bars inside each pot, too) that I figured I should leave them soaking for a couple days, so I marked on GPS and paddled in and just made Ben and Gary's final pull.  They did quite well!

The PBs said 1 of their 5 pots was poached overnight.  In other news, I forgot to bring my paddle (d'OH!) but Gary came to the rescue as usual with his spare (along with the aforementioned bungees).  Ironically, I also found my missing car key while I was on the water - in my CFS fish bag - it was there all the time last month (double d'OH!).  Ben and his Roleez were a ton of help today too!

I need to head back out there Friday or Saturday to pull pots again.  Hope others can join!

Sweet crabs baby!

I gotta try and git in on that action.

MolBasser

Hey everyone,

If weathers  and sea are good.  I'll give LM a try this Saturday or Sunday on my inflatable.  Sat most likely.  45-60 feet is quite productive and is a short run from the launch.   Anyone going there?

Gordon

Nice score - good reporting!   

How was the surf?  Check out the picture, it was a piece of cake although small waves broke right at the shore.  Coming in you have to jump out right away and grab your yak otherwise the wave could tumble you.  When I came in I leaned into the last wave and it turned me sideways so I rode it all the way into the sand.  

The weather was outstanding and the crabbing was good.  The fishing was slow, not one bite on the shrimpfly or the downstairs neighbor, a 4 oz lead head with a dark green swim bait  Both lures were tipped with squid.  Something turned off the bite because the areas we fished looked pretty fishy.  Since there is a lot of flat sandy areas I suspect that there's a halibut waiting to be caught.

Ben's rolleez saved us a lot of effort.  I moved my yak and gear down to the beach before Ben got there and laid down a nice trough in the sand with my lawn mower wheels.  It was easier to drag the yak across the sand instead of using my wheels.

When Craig pulls his traps in a couple of days they'll probably be loaded with jumbo Dungees, so his fishing report has not run its course yet.  

Ben kept seeing harbor porpoises or dolphins surfacing everywhere.  By the time I turned around they were gone.

One thing I'm not doing anymore is using squid in the wire bait holder.  It too easy for the crab pull the squid out of the basket.  Once the bait is gone there's no more reason for more crab to come into the trap.  Craig mentioned that chicken legs tied to the bait basket work fairly well.  

Parking was free and there were porta-potties for relief before and after the paddle.

Today was a good day to out.  Thanks Craig for posting the hookup.  Thanks Ben for the fishing and crabbing intel and the use of your rolleez..

Gary

Nice crabbing. that launch does look nice--what was teh direction and hiehgt of the swell that day? I want to file it away so as to judge that launch in the future.