My first trip shrimping was quite a learning experience. I bought my trap at Sportco on Friday, mixed up some bait Friday night(mackeral & catfood), and headed to Hood Canal Saturday morning.

My neighbor bailed on me, so I went by myself. I got to the ramp near the power station at about 9am and launched immediately. Everyone was already out there, so coming late wasn't all bad!

I proceeded straight across and dropped my pot in 200' of water near some other pots. I left it down for about an hour and pullled up 10. A little disappointed so I went for deeper and then pulled up 3 lousy shrimp! My last pull was down a little more south in about 230' and I got a dozen. Pulled by hand so I worked hard for those 25 shrimp!!

After the last pull, I hit the beach and shucked my limit of oysters and got a couple horse clams.

Then came the worst part of the trip. At about 3pm I headed back to the launch. Boats everywhere. Since launching and retrieving goes by trailer position, my choice was to either leave my boat on the rocks to get beat up while I waited in the line with my trailer and then holding everyone up as I struggled with my boat alone, or... do what I did and wait it out. The ramp finally cleared about 6pm.

I won't be doing the Hood Canal shrimping alone again! The shrimp are good but not that good.

Also, I heard that the boats north of Hoodsport did much better. Around Lilliwaup???