On a whim, I bought one of those castable crab traps. They've been around for awhile, but you can see the one I bought here . My question is, if you have a crab trap out on a rod, is it still legal to fish with another rod? BTW, it works great. Caught some red rocks off Redondo, kind of small with a few bigger ones, but that's what everyone was catching. I did a lot better than most.

Yup. you can use the one rod for crab, and another for fish. You just have a crab pot attached to a mini winch. Kind of like the rule where in some areas you can fish one rod for salmon, and another for forage fish (herring).

I have used one called the "Cast A Crab", shaped like the outline of a house with a peaked roof. Caught many a crab with that off of the jetty in Westport.

You may want to "up" the pound test on the reel for that rod to 15-25 pound test minimum. I use a 6500 C3 when casting mine with 60# spider wire on a medium heavy rod. If you catch a crab, there is a lot of drag created, and if you hang up on the bottom, it is nice to have the ability to pull it free.

Have fun!

Thanks for the info. I purchased the crab trap at GI Joe's, then went down to Sportco and picked up a real cheapie Shakespere surf caster with a cheapie reel. I figured that since I wasn't going to be actually fighting fish with it, it wouldn't matter. I had them load it up with some 12 pound backing, and about 150 yards of 50 pound test Power Pro. The rod it came with is a bit short, so I'm going to swap that out for a surf casting Ugly Stik that I have in storage. The instructions recommended using a chicken leg, but I seemed to do just as well with squid. It stays on the bait clip a lot better too.

Took the trap out today while fishing off Dash Point for salmon. Only saw one salmon caught (and not by me ) but I did end up with a haul of dungies. Four legal males that I kept, two 'would have been legal' females, and one slightly undersized male, all of which were returned to the water. I only caught one rock crab, which I threw back because I already had enough. I figure that the trap and the $40 I spent on the cheapie rig have about paid for itself already.

Hey Arklier,

Quit wastin' your time at Redondo, and go to Dash Point! I got my biggest Dungee ever off of the dock, it measured 8 3/4" across the back!

Ken

Before you continue your outings for crab i suggest you read the regulations for the area. King county area of puget sound is highly toxic and considered a "No Consumption" area for all shellfish, bottomfish, and crab. Turn to page 22 in your regs.