Posts Tagged ‘Crabbing Washington State’
Well it’s been a long cold winter but spring has sprung and it’s time to get ready for LaPush Halibut.
I took a trip up recently to fish lings and rockfish just to get back out on the big ocean. It was a great day. Got our lings and a couple seabass, had great ocean conditions and even saw some transient Orca whales. I am including the video link, even though it is crappy, because these big guys were running and you don’t see that all the time.
I spent the winter upgrading the boat, pics to follow, and taking classes for my OUPV (captain) license. Exams were successful and I am now officially Captain Kerry W Allen. I am a Navy veteran, I have worked for the federal government for 25 years and I finally have a marketable skill. The jury is still out as to whether I will start chartering this year or next. Oh, and no I can’t marry people.
The new regs are out. Area 11 will be closed for Salmon during May but Lings will be open May 1st through June 15th. 26 to 36 inches.
We are planning several Ocean trips this year for Halibut, Tuna and maybe even a Salmon trip or two out of Westport. I will start sending the newsletter again soon to keep everyone up to date on what’s Happening.
Good Fishin' To Ya'
Kerry W Allen
We have been working on the boat getting it ready for Spring Halibut, Summer Salmon and Fall Tuna. We are adding 10 rocket launchers, Upgrading the electronics to add a Garmin 740S which will replace the old Furuno ls4000 fish finder and an old Garmin 210 GPS, replacing the plugs on my Scotty Downriggers, patching some holes and cleaning out a bunch of old wires. We are also adding a b60 tilted element thru hull transducer, it is scary drilling a 2 3/8 hole in the bottom of the boat.
While I was down yesterday laying out some stuff and cleaning out my wiring area my friend Ringo (Bob) was down to help me. Ringo is an old gill netter from back in the day and we were swapping stories, I was mostly listening. When I finally poked my head out of the cabin I saw what Ringo had been working on. He made this beautiful series of knots on my starboard grab rail and started on the port one as well. 
These are beautiful but I told him when people ask me at the dock if I did that myself I was going to have to tell them I did. He just laughed. I also learned that he had never been halibut fishing off the coast here. So Ringo has promised to do more of his magic to my boat and I am going to make it a priority to get Ringo Halibut fishing this year. It’s a win win. I get more cool stuff for the boat, and I get to go fishing with Ringo. It kicks ass being me.
Good Fishin' To Ya'
Kerry W Allen
Ok, so I totally suck at this WDFW two cards for crab thing. And, honestly I think it is a setup. WD
FW figures if they can make it complicated enough lots of people will forget and next year they can get an extra $10 out of them. So much for my conspiracy theory.
I am writing this post to tell you all that I and my 12 year old daughter just turned in our winter crab catch to WDFW at this site. It was a great winter season.
Good Luck.
Good Fishin' To Ya'
Kerry W Allen
WDFW gave us a little Christmas gift and opened crabbing in area 11. It will remain open until the end of December. In the last couple weeks we have caught good numbers of fat, hard shelled dungeness. The bodies on these winter crab are are jammed full of meat where in the summer a lot of them are soft and in the molting process. 
This is a good time to use those Tuna scraps you have left over from the summer. If you don’t have that Turkey legs, Salmon carcasses or heads will work and in a pinch you could even use good old Puss in Boots cat food.
Oh and Sportco has a great deal on crab pots at $15 for a nice box whith an opening top. Crabbing in Quartermaster Harbor has been a great time for the kids and I. We’ve even gotten some of our friends in on the fun.
Good Fishin' To Ya'
Kerry W Allen
I don’t know if others experience this but I seem to have a lot of smarty pants type people around me. I was supposed to go crabbing with my friend YT (pronounced whitee) on Sunday but I worked a little overtime so I didn’t get the boat back in the water. We were going to drop some pots at Quartermaster Harbor and troll around for a couple hours get some fat winter crab and go home.
Today is monday and I see YT and he says “we only got three crab” in that “ask me what else happened” kinda voice. So I say “but they were big fat nice ones, yes?”. He couldn’t hold it any more and told me he caught a nice 23lb Blackmouth while soaking the pots. Needless to say it didn’t take much prompting to get the rest of the story. 
He was fishing on the west side of Point Dalco, in about 100 feet of water. he was running a hot spot on the downrigger ball, with about a 4 foot leader, and a coyote spoon about three feet behind that off the release. I will try to post a pic of this rig in the future.
Good Job YT
Good Fishin' To Ya'
Kerry W Allen
I almost missed it but winter crab opened today. 
The cool thing about winter crab is the shells are harder and they are packed full of yummy meat. Check out the map pages for where to fish and there is some good info on the wdfw website also. The season will be open 7 days a week till December 31st but make sure you check the regs.
From WDFW: Waters reopening to sport crabbing Oct. 8 at 8 a.m. include marine areas 4 (Neah Bay), 5 (Sekiu), 6 (eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca), 7 (San Juan Islands), 8-1 (Deception Pass, Hope Island, and Skagit Bay), 8-2 (Port Susan and Port Gardner), and a portion of Marine Area 9 (Admiralty Inlet) north of a line that extends from Olele Point to Foulweather Bluff.
Marine areas 11 (Tacoma-Vashon Island) and 13 (South Puget Sound) will reopen for sport crabbing at 8 a.m. on Nov. 21.
In each area, crabbing will be allowed seven days a week through Dec. 31.
Good Fishin' To Ya'
Kerry W Allen
It’s the end of October and that means some great fall fishing is coming to a close and with it goes the retention of wild kings and the ability to keep two Chinook. The good news is blackmouth season is upon us. My personal favorite Puget Sound fishery is blackmouth, or local kings, so I get very excited about this time of year. We are back to releasing wild Chinook (adipose fin in tact) and only keeping one Chinook but there are still some chum around and local coho to fill the two fish limit. And we will have winter crabbing in area 11 this year starting November 21st seven days a week til December 31st.
There is nothing like a crisp clear winter day, where the sun is out and the water is perfectly flat. There is very little competition for these fish so I am usually the only boat out, or one of just a couple. If I’m lucky I can get my buddy James or one of the other hard cores to go. We fish Blackmouth mostly at the tide changes, and hour before to an hour after. I’ll fish the Girl Scout Camp or Point Richmond on the in and Point Defiance on the out. Or Gig Harbor on either tide. There is a hump just north of the harbor that holds fish on the leeward side.
I troll between 2.5 and 3 MPH but will go slower if I’m running fat plugs like the Tomic Tubby’s. I usually run spoons or hoochies in green. I also have a couple Tomic Plugs one white and one green that work really well for Blackmouth. For instructions on rigging these check out my youtube channel. Don’t forget to subscribe. And you want to run this right on the bottom. usually if you run your downrigger ball the same depth as the water, or even a little deeper for the angle, you will usually be close enough. These fish are sitting on the bottom and feeding up.
Don’t forget to wear a life jacket when fishing in the winter and let someone know where your going and when you’ll be back. Unlike the summer, there aren’t a lot of other people around so a small mistake could be disastrous. Good Luck
Good Fishin' To Ya'
Kerry W Allen
I was out a week or so ago and my kicker started pumping oil out the top of the block. I’m no mechanic but I’m sure that aint good. The old Honda has had a hard life and it was time for her to go.
A beautiful day in Gig Harbor
Saturday I took out a couple guys from fort Lewis, which was cool, and we tried trolling with the big motor. At dead idle the boat trolls about 3.2 mph in this configuration so I didn’t expect much but we had 4 shakers and two nice take downs that we couldn’t button up. It was a gorgeous day and everyone had a great time.
What you do if your kicker dies
This morning I went out and
tried dragging a bucket to try to slow the boat down a bit.
I have told a lot of people to try this but have never done it myself. It worked pretty well and slowed the boat down to about 2.8 to 3 mph. I did not catch any shakers this morning but I got royally slimmed by some nasty jellies.
Do you Know this guy?
After a couple hours my attention started to drift. I took some pictures of other people catching fish, and some bad eagle pics, for the blog. Later, I was in the cabin driving and about half asleep, the cool part about trolling whith the big motor is the heater works so my feet were warm at least, when suddenly ZZZZZZZIIIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPP!!!!. I look out the window and the rod is dancing like crazy. I run out to grab the rod and remember that I can’t slow the boat from there so I go back in to put the boat in neutral but I pull too hard and kick it into reverse. crap!! I reach back up get the boat into neutral and go back out to play my fish (I was honestly surprised it was still there). I start reeling and the fish starts swimming at me. I have to reel fast to keep up but thanks to these new reels I had made I am able to. These reels have a 4:1 retrieve, 4 ball bearings and are very smooth with strong drags.
Wild Chinook. Released
Unfortunately when I got this guy in the net I realized it had an adipose fin so I would have to let it go. I took a couple pictures, careful not to remove the fish from the water and let it out of my net. At first it just lay there and I was beginning to get concerned but when I reached to grab it by the tail and try to revive it it gave a quick shake and was gone.
Good Fishin' To Ya'
Kerry W Allen
As opening day of crab season approached I was feeling a little tentative. I have heard the tribes hit my favorite spot, Quartermaster Harbor, pretty hard so I was afraid it was going to be slim pickens if you know what I mean.
As we arrived Friday morning there were tons of boats around and loads of pots. So we wiggled our way in and dropped in about 75 feet of water. The low tide was a -2.5 that day so I didn’t want to go much deeper than that. We went to Dockton for the day and came back and checked after lunch. There were three nice dungeness in one pot and nothing in the other so we moved it closer to the first. At 8 o’clock we checked a last time and got three more combined to finish my limit.
Saturday morning brought 5 more dungeness (one was about 7.5 inches) and a rock crab that went back. we soaked the pots again till 11:00am and when we checked them they were completely empty.
Overall it was an average opening but I hope we will do better as the season continues and there is less pressure on the fishery.
Good Fishin' To Ya'
Kerry W Allen
RECREATIONAL SHRIMP FISHERY
Opens May 7 in Puget Sound
FREE
SHRIMPING & CRABBING SEMINAR
WITH SALMON UNIVERSITY’S TOM NELSON
AT OUTDOOR EMPORIUM
APRIL 23RD 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM
Good Fishin' To Ya'
Kerry W Allen
Gig Harbor Fly Shop
Gig Harbor.com