Prawns! And Orcas, oh my....

[lokidog]

It was a busy day yesterday. Some friends (they got one of Amber's puppies last year) are visiting the Islands from CA so I took them out after Spot Prawns. They brought their own boat so we set out eight traps.

The weather was incredible, even for here in the summer... hardly a whisper of wind and no swell (waves) at all. Most of our pots were set in deeper water, 300+, feet as usual with two shallower just to spread it out. I was surprised at how few boats there were as on a weekend in May, there can be over 100 in sight. The first pots pulled from the deeper water were not very good, 15-25 in each, but the shallower ones did much better 65-90 per pot so we moved them all "shallow", still 235 to 275 feet deep.

They were hoping to catch something to eat like a Cabezon or Greenling, but were happy with catch and release with the Rockfish and Dogfish Sharks that were plentiful. Unfortunately, one very large Staghorn Sculpin was released that could have been kept and eaten. We ended up with about 660 shrimp and a great show at the end of the day when a bunch of Orcas passed by.

[Timberstalker]

Nice!  That's a fine mess of shrimp!  660!

Quite the sails on that boat as well.

[Ripper]

  nice work Loki

[RB]

Right on love seeing the Orcas! We went out and pulled 480 in two pulls and waved at the whale watchers in the the big jet boat hahaha. Morning weather was awesome but by 1 o'clock it picked up quite a bit took us awhile to get back to Coronet Bay.

We did have a cool sighting of an eagle, it came down about 50 yards out picked up a small fish and flew off, we could see the fish wiggling in its talons. 

[Elkrunner]

Those look tasty!

[lokidog]

Right on love seeing the Orcas! We went out and pulled 480 in two pulls and waved at the whale watchers in the the big jet boat hahaha. Morning weather was awesome but by 1 o'clock it picked up quite a bit took us awhile to get back to Coronet Bay.

We did have a cool sighting of an eagle, it came down about 50 yards out picked up a small fish and flew off, we could see the fish wiggling in its talons. 

Interesting on the wind for you.  We got back about 4 and it was still pretty flat.

Those look tasty!

Yep!   

[Smokepole]

Yum.  You got me licken my chops.  Nothing better than spot prawns.   

[Oh Mah]

That's pretty awesome.Is that your sail boat?Where were the Orcas at San Juan Island area?

[bowhunterforever]

Yummy

[Whitpirate]

fine mess of eats there

[warthog]

nice pics !  and awesome prawns.

been thinking of a blue crab / shrimp boil.  the only ingredients i have is the old bay seasoning.   

[lokidog]

That's pretty awesome.Is that your sail boat?Where were the Orcas at San Juan Island area?

Orcas were heading from East to West on south end of Lopez.  They were probably heading over toward Lime Kiln and were spotted today by my friends near Eagle Point, I think.

nice pics !  and awesome prawns.

been thinking of a blue crab / shrimp boil.  the only ingredients i have is the old bay seasoning.   

I find boiled shrimp lose a lot of their flavor, I prefer them with a light breading and deep fried or simply sauteed in butter with a little garlic and onion powder.

[Oh Mah]

Thanks i'm going to have to go over one of these days and do some whale watching,Never have done it.

[Kit Carson]

Nice! 

[lokidog]

Thanks!  My son and my limits of tails ended up weighing 14 pounds, basically 22.8 tails per pound.  If we were sorting to an 80 shrimp limit, I have no doubt we would have been in the 19-20 tails per pound range, there were a lot of big ones in the mix.

Oh Man, the sailboat was just passing by but was a nice photo op.