crabbing tips for a noob?

[acnewman55]

crabbing noob here.

been crabbing a few times before, but always with a friend.  i'm heading to lopez island to camp this weekend and will be dropping a few borrowed pots into the drink near the beach.

anything i should consider concerning location?  other than water depth during the tides?

what about bait?  i've got a big, freezer-burned king salmon filet that i'll be using, and the buddy who loaned me the pots recommends turkey legs.  i was also looking at crab/fish scent oils to spice it up a bit - are those worth the $ or not? 

thanks

[CP]

Location- Eel grass beds, flats near a drop off, near where fresh water enters the salt.

Bait – I never buy it.  A salmon head works great, your freezer burnt fillet will work too.  Protect it somehow or the crabs will make short work of it then you’ll be baitless.  Jig up some flatfish.  Don’t waste time & money on scents.

[bullcanyon]

Make sure you know the depth and how much rope.  Turkey legs work great. 

[h20hunter]

Here is my basics...


Skip the scents of this and that. Put in some chicken, fish, old bait, turkey legs. Put some in a box/bag to make them work, put some free hanging and exposed to get them tearing on it. Fresh flatfish works great. I soak for about 30 minutes, then pull. I try and move the pots around to work an area. Thats pretty much it.

[notellumcreek]

If you can, catch some bottom dwelling fish(bullhead, Flounder,etc.) before you set your pots. Give them some nice knife wounds and hang them inside the pot. Crab will go crazy over fresh bait and have something to keep them busy with when they are in the pot. Look at H2O's thread of a go pro in a pot, and he figured out some crab will actually get out as others are coming in to the pot. If they are kept busy then you have a better chance. I would check your pots fairly often first couple of sets to dial in and see where the crab are at. Good luck 

[notellumcreek]

Here is my basics...


Skip the scents of this and that. Put in some chicken, fish, old bait, turkey legs. Put some in a box/bag to make them work, put some free hanging and exposed to get them tearing on it. Fresh flatfish works great. I soak for about 30 minutes, then pull. I try and move the pots around to work an area. Thats pretty much it.

beat me to it h2O 

[h20hunter]

Here is an example I've got currently.

This box has good stuff in there.....flounder, chicken, scent....you name it. They like it, oh yeah they do, but with nothing free hanging to keep them at a frenzy you can see some come and some go. I'll try and get some new footage next time out of my flounder bomb (5 hanging flounder sliced open) along with the box as a comparison.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLqcQPXMJrQ

[CP]

Nice video.

[h20hunter]

I swear I can zone out and watch.....kind of like a campfire...I just stare. Funny watching the dogs try and get in.

[CP]

Here's a pic of my standard setup:

[h20hunter]

I don't want to over post the links but I've got some fun salmon go pro vids along with them. Just click my channel name and look for the ones that are just puget sound green...They are a little "up and down" since I have such a short sight distance with the camera but a few you can see some salmon strikes and a nice school of fish.

[acnewman55]

Make sure you know the depth and how much rope.  Turkey legs work great.

Is there a rule on how much extra rope you want in addition to the true depth of the water you're dropping your pots in?

[h20hunter]

Kind of depends on the area and how intense the current gets. Where I crab...just out of Everett...it typically doesn't get ripping to bad. I like to fish no deeper than 70 with 100 feet of line. Now...up norht in the 'juans...I'd probably want more. When in doubt, just fish a bit shallower. I've pulled some great pots in 25 and been blanked out deeper. Keep moving...don't get locked in just because you get a keeper or two.

[Stein]

Salmon scraps work the best for me.  60 - 225 feet but shallower seems to be the ticket this year.  Turkey also works as does trout.  Best advice is to not let your eyes off your float, there are an abundance of dirt bags out there.

[MIKEXRAY]

I asked an older neighbor this question about ten years ago , I was catching crab but not killing them.  He told me to add 50 ft of rope and fish deeper then most other people. I have been doing this for ten years and have doubled & tripled my crab count easily.  I motor out past all the under 100 ft pots ( hundreds of them ) and my pots are the only ones out in the 130 ft range. Been awesome fishing ever since.

[acnewman55]

thanks for the tips everyone.

we were out crabbing out of Lopez Island this weekend.  ended up only running off shore a few hundred yards, and were dropping our two pots between 20-30 feet all weekend.  had a big freezer burned salmon filet that worked best, but the crab chewed through that fast.  both pots were loaded when we used the salmon.

when that ran out, we switched to chicken, which worked, but not as well.  at least the chicken lasted longer in the bait boxes.

i think we only had maybe 3-4 males all weekend that weren't legal size.  we pulled several monsters that were 8" across.  all the females were small.

anyways, the four of us all limited for three days straight.  we were crabbing with my girlfriend's grandparents, who sent us home with their catch from the weekend as well, since they're staying out there another week.

We ate a ton of fresh crab, and still brought 40 dungeness back with us in the coolers, and now I'm picking crab-meat and stocking the freezer for the next 24 hours.

[h20hunter]

Very nice. Now....learn how to make some crab cakes with that leaft over meat and you are dialed in!