Crabbing





 

Last Sunday, we took our friends, Lilly and Kevin, out for a sail trip.  Besides enjoying the sunshine near-perfect conditions on Puget Sound, the other purpose of the trip was to do some crabbing.  We'd gotten our 2014 crabbing and fishing license a while back, but this was the first time we'd put it to use.

 



 

 

We headed out from Ballard Mill Marina around 9:00 AM and made it through the locks in no time.  We dropped two crab pots just beyond the breakwater in front of Shilshole Bay Marina. We filled the bait bags with (extra stinky) chicken livers and clams.  (Kevin was wise enough to instruct us that, when crabbing, stinkier is always better.)

 

After dropping the pots, we headed across the Sound toward Port Madison.  This was Kevin's first trip on Vicky Lee, and he definitely saw the best of sailing.

 

After a near perfect sail across the sound, we headed back toward Shilshole to check the pots.  We first checked the pot we'd dropped in shallower water -- at about 60 feet -- and were disheartened to find that we'd only got one very small rock crab, which we had to throw back. We then went to check the second pot, which we'd dropped in deeper water and were quite pleasantly surprised to find that our stinky livers and clams had attracted 11 crabs. Jackpot!

 

Kevin and I hoisted the very full pot onto Vicky's bow, and then carefully carried it back to the cockpit to open it up.

 



Ty bravely opened the pot to extract the crabs one-by-one so that we could check that they were male and large enough to keep.  He did not escape unscathed and suffered at least one good pinch on the finger.

 



In all, we ended up with five lovely Dungeness to divide among the crew.   Ty and I boiled our crabs in salty seawater and enjoyed them with a late dinner back at the Marina.  Yum!