Family and friends crabbed Dabob bay sat.
Worst crabbin I ever saw there.We ended up with 3 keeper dungies and about 10 big rock crab.Using about10 pots between us.Did release a few 6" males and a few 6 1/4-6 1/2 females.
I did get my biggest dungie yet up ther though.8" !!!

Didnt see anybody else that had much luck.I think the best I heard of was some guys with 6 keepers.

Try again this next weekend. The tides have been pretty tough lately.

Did you soak the pots overnight? What depth were you fishing? Where you fishing with the crowds? The basic rules I follow are: Experiment to find the right depth...if you are catching rocks, the dungies are likely deeper. fish the slack tides, and stay away from the crowds.

Kramer makes good point about tides. During the strong tides, crabs will "dig in" to the sand and are less inclined to move. Also, the scent tends to get carried away quickly in the strong currents. We set pots on Friday in Area 10 during the strong afternoon incoming and only got a few. The pots were soaked overnight (during small tides) in the same area and had multiple limits of legal males the next morning.

Also, this year where we fish the crabs seem much deeper than normal. My usual haunts in 75 feet have produced mostly rocks, but pots fished in 110-120 feet have produced well.

Finally, I like experiment and try to fish where the other pots aint! I have set pots randomly in different areas of Area 10 over the last few years and have found that there are the "hot spots" where most everyone sets (these get picked out quick), and then there are many areas that dungies frequent which almost never see a pot. I currently fish an area with consistent success that is within one mile of my home harbor. This is a spot I drove directly over for years while running another ten miles north to crab!

HntnFish:

We crabbed Dabob and Quilcene Bays Thursday through Saturday. At first we had poor luck, but by moving around and soaking overnight we ended up with more than 30 legal crabs. I agree it is not like last year but there are a fair number around.

On Thursday and Friday we had only three pots for five of us. On Friday night we had two friends join us with three more pots.

While we never slayed them, we had several pots with three legals. On one pull of the six pots we had seven legals. We did best in 100-150 feet of water and better in Dabob than in Quilcenc Bay.

Hope this helps.

zowwie... My longest crab rope is only 75'... I've been doing pretty well in 45'-65'. But, I've targetting the drop offs around sand flats.

I crabbed the lower end of the canal on Saturday. It was tough, but I managed 8 keepers with four pots. I fished a lot of different spots from Tahuya to the Skok flats to Potlatch. Interesting that I didn't catch a single Rock crab all day. Moored the boat at Alderbrook and got treated to a great outdoor concert. I guess that make the $25 moorage a little easier to swallow...

Thanks for the pointers everybody.I did experiment around on the depths.30-100ft.I actually did better in 30-40 ft than the deeper pots.I was seriously considering going and getting more rope so I could get deeper yet.
I'm heading back up Friday for a week.I'll definitely do some more exploring to try to find some more productive spots.Plus I'll try running a few of them deeper.Hopefully I'll find a nice honey hole.
I havent tried soaking my pots overnite.Been too afraid of losing them to thieves.Maybe it isnt such a problem up there.Hows your experiences been with that?Maybe I'll leave out some of my cheaper gear and see how it goes.

The "Honey Hole" of Dabob is along the East side @ 125 feet, but don't be afraid to go much deeper. Commercials routinely fish 300 feet in many areas. Especially the Nisqually "elbow", Hood Canal, the mouth of Discovery Bay, South and North San Juan Islands and the Southern Strait of Georgia off Birch Bay. Remember, 300 feet of 5/16 leadline weighs 8 pounds, barely what a standard 5 x 11 float will support. Use more floatation, and I hope you are using an EZ-PULL electric pot puller.