plumbertom
Active member
Well, not exactly, But My first trip without someone who knew the ropes.
I picked up 4 lightweight crab traps on Craigslist not long ago.
Yesterday A friend and I took the ride to Coos Bay with my boat.
We figured to drop the traps and then fish a bit for rock fish.
Although it was breezy at 1 pm when we launched at the BLM ramp,
we headed down river a ways until I felt we about midway along the area shown on crab fishing web sites and the message board at the launch.
Baited our traps with some chicken and tossed them over in about 25' of water and then proceeded to go fish along the rocks.
After about 45 minutes we we pulled the traps and low and behold the first one had only one rather large male Dungeness.
But the second and third were packed with crabs, The majority were undersized, a very few were females, and there were a number of rather green looking crabs that I took to be soft shells.
Those were all returned to the water, yet we still had a few good ones to toss into the live well. The fourth trap only produced two.
So we did it again. To shorten the story, our next two trap drops produced about the same number of crabs although the first and fourth improved in numbers and despite one trap coming partially open as it was being pulled Into the boat and loosing at least a Half dozen crabs, we still managed 18 good sized Dungeness crabs and one red crab.
As far as the rockfish, we only got 2 black rockfish, but they were decent size, with one weighing 2.5 lbs and the other 2.75 lbs.
The trip back to the launch was slow and tedious due to the chop making it too uncomfortable to ride in the front seat at speed.
Finally got home with a big load of live crab and found my propane burner wouldn't burn properly. That's a repair I'm gonna have to get done before the next trip.
By the time I got all the crab cooked on the stove it was nearing midnight, today I'm in recovery mode.
I picked up 4 lightweight crab traps on Craigslist not long ago.
Yesterday A friend and I took the ride to Coos Bay with my boat.
We figured to drop the traps and then fish a bit for rock fish.
Although it was breezy at 1 pm when we launched at the BLM ramp,
we headed down river a ways until I felt we about midway along the area shown on crab fishing web sites and the message board at the launch.
Baited our traps with some chicken and tossed them over in about 25' of water and then proceeded to go fish along the rocks.
After about 45 minutes we we pulled the traps and low and behold the first one had only one rather large male Dungeness.
But the second and third were packed with crabs, The majority were undersized, a very few were females, and there were a number of rather green looking crabs that I took to be soft shells.
Those were all returned to the water, yet we still had a few good ones to toss into the live well. The fourth trap only produced two.
So we did it again. To shorten the story, our next two trap drops produced about the same number of crabs although the first and fourth improved in numbers and despite one trap coming partially open as it was being pulled Into the boat and loosing at least a Half dozen crabs, we still managed 18 good sized Dungeness crabs and one red crab.
As far as the rockfish, we only got 2 black rockfish, but they were decent size, with one weighing 2.5 lbs and the other 2.75 lbs.
The trip back to the launch was slow and tedious due to the chop making it too uncomfortable to ride in the front seat at speed.
Finally got home with a big load of live crab and found my propane burner wouldn't burn properly. That's a repair I'm gonna have to get done before the next trip.
By the time I got all the crab cooked on the stove it was nearing midnight, today I'm in recovery mode.
