CrabbingInTheHood.com

One of my COTH readers, Jeff Pascoe, a resident up in Kingston WA, recently asked:

“Do you know of any other piers or places, for guys like me who don’t have a boat, to go crabbing?”

That’s a great question, Jeff. I remember when we first moved here to Kitsap County WA how desperately consumed my boys and I were to try our hands at crabbing. So desperate, in fact, that we settled on a 2-man inflatable we bought over at Wally-World (See ‘Stupid Human Boats Tricks’ Part One). But that’s another completely humiliating story….

Crabbing from piers and docks here in WA State used to be very common and usually netted enough of the snappy bottom feeders to give everyone a good taste. Unfortunately, as human populations have increased, the crab populations have decreased, making it difficult in certain areas for even boat owners to make their limits consistently.

Still, there are a couple of area fishing piers where you might find an occasional rogue dungy lurking about. A couple that I would recommend trying is the pier at Illahee State Park in Bremerton WA or the Harper pier down in Port Orchard WA. Your chances typically improve around the peak of high tide.

I would be curious if any of my other readers have had any success crabbing off of area piers, docks, or tidelands. If so, please feel free to comment and share your locations.

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Rich Jacobson is a licensed real estate professional providing knowledgeable empowerment and relentless representation for his clients of residential properties and vacant land throughout all of Kitsap County WA and portions of Pierce, Mason, and Jefferson Counties. You can also find him at KitsapLife.com, SOUNDBITEBLOG, ActiveRain, Everyday CK, Facebook, Twitter, or e-mail:  kitsapagent@gmail.com

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During an upcoming public meeting scheduled for Feb. 4 thru 6 in Olympia, the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission will consider adopting a new package of sportfishing rules for 2010-12, as well as updates to the Columbia River sturgeon management policy.

Of particular interest is a proposed change to the Dungeness Crab Season and Daily Limit. This past year when the season opened, recreational crabbing was allowed each week from Wednesday through Saturday, with a legal limit of 5 per day, per licensed person. The newly proposed rules would change the allowable days for crabbing to Friday through Monday, and reduce the legal limit down to 4 per day, per licensed person.

While the day changes are certainly welcome, it’s hard to swallow (or maybe I should say ‘not’ to swallow) the reduction in daily limits. This is the second time in recent years that the limit amount has been lowered.

The commission, a nine-member citizen panel appointed by the governor to set policy for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), will convene for its regular meeting Feb. 5-6 in Room 172 of the Natural Resources Building, 1111 Washington St. S.E. The meeting is scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m. both days.

For more information, go to WA Dept of Fish & Wildlife

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Rich Jacobson is a licensed real estate professional providing knowledgeable empowerment and relentless representation for his clients of residential properties and vacant land throughout all of Kitsap County WA and portions of Pierce, Mason, and Jefferson Counties. You can also find him at KitsapLife.com, SOUNDBITEBLOG, ActiveRain, Everyday CK, Facebook, Twitter, or e-mail:  kitsapagent@gmail.com

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Just a friendly reminder….for local crabbing enthusiasts:

You have until January 15th 2010 to electronically submit your Dungeness Crab Catch Card numbers to the WA Dept of Fish & Wildlife

WA State law requires that ALL fishers record their catch of Dungeness Crab on their License Catch Record Card and return their cards by mail or report their catch numbers electronically on-line by the date printed on the Catch Card, even if you didn’t catch any crab.

To report your Dungeness Crab Catch Card amounts on-line, go HERE.

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Rich Jacobson is a licensed real estate professional providing knowledgeable empowerment and relentless representation for his clients of residential properties and vacant land throughout all of Kitsap County WA and portions of Pierce, Mason, and Jefferson Counties. You can also find him at KitsapLife.com, SOUNDBITEBLOG, ActiveRain, Everyday CK, Facebook, Twitter, or e-mail:  kitsapagent@gmail.com

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Seems like everyone has their own unique or special way of cleaning Dungeness Crab. Some people bring their catch back live and steam them up whole. My Dad prefers it that way, so he can scoop out the ‘butter’ from the outer edges of the shell. That’s a bit too hardcore for me though.

I prefer to clean the crabs before we head back to the launch. Of course, we’re careful to retain the shells in the event that the Fish & Wildlife guys show up. Otherwise, cleaning the crabs before we head home means there’s more room in the pot, and less hassle with clean-up afterward.

Here’s a short video that we shot out on Hood Canal during the summer of 2008. It shows our method of cleaning the Dungeness Crabs quickly and efficiently. We strike then in the center of their under-body with an axe. This kills them instantly. Then each side of the inner body, with legs and claws attached, is twisted and peeled away from the shell. All that remains is to remove the lungs and rinse off any guts. We transport the cleaned crabs back home in a bucket of sea water taken from Hood Canal, and that’s what we use to cook them in. Enjoy the video!

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Rich Jacobson is a licensed real estate professional providing knowledgeable empowerment and relentless representation for his clients of residential properties and vacant land throughout all of Kitsap County WA and portions of Pierce, Mason, and Jefferson Counties. You can also find him at KitsapLife.com and SOUNDBITEBLOG, or e-mail:  kitsapagent@gmail.com

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September 21st is the deadline for reporting your Summer recreational crab catch record for 2009.

A $10.00 penalty will be automatically applied to your next Puget Sound crabbing license endorsement if you fail to report by the due date!

Reporting is required, whether you caught anything or not. You can either submit your summer catch card by mail, or use the convenient on-line reporting procedure.

If you utilize the on-line reporting process, your name will be submitted for a drawing. Ten winners will receive a FREE 2010 combination fishing license!

To report your catch on-line, simply access the following WA Dept. of Fish & Wildlife website from between September 8 thru 21:

https:fishhunt.dfw.wa.gov

To snail mail your summer catch card, address it to the following:

WDFW CRC Unit

600 Capital Way North

Olympia, WA 98501-1091

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One of the perils of recreational crabbing here in the Puget Sound WA is exposing yourself and your crabbing gear to potential thievery.

Okay, so maybe it’s not quite as perilous as the Discovery Channel’s “Deadliest Catch,” but it certainly is extremely annoying and frustrating!

We went out onto Hood Canal last Saturday afternoon to retrieve our crab pots, only to find 3 out of the 4 missing. The remaining pot had been picked clean.

There are instances (usually during the weekdays) when we don’t have a lot of time, and simply drop off our crab pots, leaving them out overnight. On the weekends, when we’re not in as much of a hurry, we’ll catch some rays, or tool over to Pleasant Harbor, while we wait for our pots to fill up.

Occasionally, it is entirely possible to set your pots too close to a steep underwater shelf, and have the current drag them into deeper water. But we dropped ours out at the peak of high tide, and left more than enough excess rope to compensate for any variables. It’s also highly unlikely that 3 pots, set at varying depths, would all strangely disappear, or that the 4th pot would be empty.

So, to you low-life crab pot crooks, I offer the following message:

Each of my crab pot buoys are marked with my name and phone number – Rich Jacobson (360) 440-4758. If you feel it necessary to pull up our pots and pilfer our crab, then at least leave the crab pots intact where you find them. We’ve always been very generous with the bounty of our catch and we don’t mind sharing some with you. But having to replace our gear is a huge pain and gets rather costly.

May the Creator of Crabbing Karma repay you for your dastardly deeds of Dungeness deprivation.

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Rich Jacobson is a licensed real estate professional providing knowledgeable empowerment and relentless representation for his clients of residential properties and vacant land throughout all of Kitsap County WA and portions of Pierce, Mason, and Jefferson Counties. You can also find him at KitsapLife.com and SOUNDBITEBLOG, or e-mail:  kitsapagent@gmail.com

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Well, July 29th couldn’t come any faster to the Jacobson household. That was the day that the recreational crabbing season for Marine Zone 12 (Hood Canal) officially opened!

Our first pull of the season made the nearly month long delay well worth the wait. Our first pot yielded 8 exceptionally large keepers. Several were off the gauge, measuring over 8 inches in body shell span. We easily limited out at 15 and actually had to throw a couple smaller males back to remain within legal catch limits.

The second week proved almost as productive, catching 8 one day and 11 the next.

With the WA Dept. of Fish & Wildlife extending the current  season out until January 2, 2010, our mounting freezer stockpile  is guaranteed to keep us crab happy during the off-season.

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Rich Jacobson is a licensed real estate professional providing knowledgeable empowerment and relentless representation for his clients of residential properties and vacant land throughout all of Kitsap County WA and portions of Pierce, Mason, and Jefferson Counties. You can also find him at KitsapLife.com and SOUNDBITEBLOG, or e-mail:  kitsapagent@gmail.com

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Okay, so what’s wrong with this picture?

Here is it July 13th, and my boat (the ever-faithful 16 foot C-Dory Angler) hasn’t graced the waters of Puget Sound for the 2009 crabbing season!

Where the HECK are my priorities???

Normally by this time we’d have dropped and pulled our pots a half dozen times or so, porked out to our heart’s content, and started to replenish our our stock of frozen seal-a-meal bags.

But unfortunately, the opening of the recreational crabbing season has been delayed for Marine Zone 12 (Hood Canal), and doesn’t begin until July 29th.

Add to that the fact that I’ve been literally SWAMPED here of late working with 4 different Buyer clients. Luckily though, two of them should be under contract shortly, so I may finally have a few spare moments to run out and snag a few Dungies!

Happy Crabbing!…

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In years past, you had several local options on where you could purchase your crabbing gear supplies.

When we first moved here to Silverdale WA, I found some great bargains at a Pawn Shop over in downtown Poulsbo, just down from JJ’s Fish Restaurant. Unfortunately, they went out of business a few years back.

Kitsap Sports (just behind Macy’s Furniture store and Home Depot) has historically maintained a somewhat limited inventory, with typically higher prices.

Big Five Sports (located in the strip mall with Arby’s and Emerald City Smoothie) is known for their bargain prices, but their inventory of crabbing gear is extremely minimal.

As I had reported previously, in the face of bankruptcy proceedings, our local Sportsman Warehouse was recently purchased by UFA Cooperative Ltd., a company based out of Calgary, Canada, which currently operates 35 farm and ranch stores, 7 sporting goods stores, and 120 gas stations, mostly in western Canada. They operate under the name of Wholesale Sports.

I took a brief visit to Wholesale Sports here in Silverdale the other day (just one block east of Costco) and was pleasantly surprised to find an even greater selection of products than what had been previously inventoried by Sportsman’s Warehouse.

They carry the full range of Danielson products, including the most popular inexpensive collapsible crab trap for under $25.  You can outfit a complete crabbing rig for about $75 – which would include the trap, buoy kit w/ 100 ft. of poly rope, bait cage, weight kit, and 4-point harness kit.

The low end Danielson collapsible trap will usually last approximately 3 seasons, but Wholesale Sports also offers several other brands/styles that are more durable and naturally more expensive.

With the recreational crabbing season quickly approaching here in the Puget Sound, I would highly recommend a visit to Wholesale Sports in Silverdale WA, and stock up on all your crabbing gear needs!

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Well, we’ve come a long way since the time my son Ben and I dropped our first crab pot into the waters of Hood Canal WA.

If you’re already familiar with the story, you’ll know that the Summer after we moved here, we were desperate for crab! So we bought a ‘cheapie charlie’ 2-man inflatable boat from Wally-Mart, loaded it up with crabbin’ goodies, and launched out of Seal Rock Campground, just north of Brinnon.

Needless to say, it was a comedy of errors! But the upside was that we learned all the things NOT to do next time, as well as what ‘correct’ gear was necessary.

Obviously, the most basic thing we needed was a decent boat. Thanks to a really generous old-timer over in East Bremerton, we bought our 1985 C-Dory Angler, the perfect little utility boat.

The next thing was figuring out what crabbing rig was most effective.

In  the past, your best bet for crabbin’ gear was the Sportsman’s Warehouse in Silverdale. Unfortunately, they filed for bankruptcy earlier this year and sold 15 of their stores, including 7 in WA State, to UFA Cooperative in Alberta, Canada. It’s unclear if UFA plans to continue stocking crabbing gear and at what discounts.

I have always purchased the less expensive Danielson 24″ Folding Crab Trap. It retails for just under $30 and lasts about 3 or 4 seasons. A more durable stainless steel version will easily run $80 per trap.

In my next installment, I’ll give you some possible resources where you can purchase your crabbing gear in the Puget Sound area.

Happy Crabbing!…

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