We are just back from a great Hood Canal trip. Got limits of crabs, clams, oysters and got some exercise on geoducks.

We had so much fun we want to return and give those geoducks a return match.

There is a good tide series in late July, but we wonder if the crab season will last that long. Do any of you have an educated guess as to how long it may last.

Dave, the lowest tides are in early July. I was in northern Hood Canal and crabbed/clammed Fri & Sat. Word was that crabbing was gangbusters on Tues (the opener) but declined rapidly each day. The Native Americans working out of the Salsbury launch were extracting 44,000 pounds/day. Their opener was the same day as the sport guys - now there is some intellegent planning. You cound really tell on Saturday that all that was left were commercial throw-back crab -- soft or imperfect if legal. May a fresh stock of crab will move up from deep water in the next couple weeks?

We went out Tuesday after work and Saturday. Got our limits yesterday on crabs and oysters. I didn't see any Indians at the ramp yesterday as they must have wiped it out pretty good around Salsbury. I didn't see any WDFW crab checkers. I don't know how they estimate the take. I think they do phone surveys. Last year they closed it in October. I would guess that it would close earlier this year because of increased pressure. I would guess they will close around August or September.

The tribal harvest was over at 2PM Friday, so the ramp was pretty clear for the weekend.

We noticed a small plane flying over the crabbing areas. I believe they were photographing the water for a pot-buoy count.

Hard to say how long the season will hold up this year and it is going to be yet another year until the new catch record card system can more accurately count recreational crab take. I was also in Hood Canal yesterday and got a few noce crab but also came up empty of a couple of pulls...The tribal harvest is huge....No checking that I know of but it really does tell the tale when all you get are small crab, spft crab or females....The stock has already been heavily culled and we are only in the first week.


I crabbed in Everett as well and was shocked by the number of crab we got and the fact that we threw them ALL back....not a keeper out of say 75 crab...I am told there is really no bad place to crab in the canal but I nver go there so I wouldn't know. I know some of the most uncooperative and traditionally most fisheries greedy tribes are in the canal pillaging the crab like no tomorrow.

We have to be able to somehow account for what is going on that we all see and figure out with common sense. So OK you get 50% but dammit let's count the take more accurately to make sure you don't get 75%.

I have to wear a yellow tag around my neck and get 6 crab....Three of us got 7 yesterday. I saw many pots come in empty. So how many hundreds of thousands of pounds did the tribes get before we even got a chance to try?
It is disgusting.

I have a family cabin at the mouth of the Tahuya River. We crabbed yesterday and got limits, but there was a big difference between the crab from last year. The size was a big thing, we did get two or three monsters but not like last year. We had crab holding on the the outside of the pot and we usually only had to throw away the females, and the rest after we limited. This year we averaged maybe 8 to a pot, w/three or for non legals. Maybe too much native harvesting.

Here's a picture of our best pull Saturday after low tide in shallow water. 8 keepers out of 24 on our second to last pull to put us at our limit. The biggest was 8 in. Funny how some pulls had no crab at all but the pots were 50-75 ft apart. Herd mentality here. Injected the chicken w/scent and added some fish to the bait box.

[img]http://kayleen.kaorg.com/cgi-bin/tnview....rab.jpg&max=500[/img]