School me on Shrimping

[Taco280AI]

Where's the pics?

[Stein]

Speaking of deep, found this wrapped on my pot anchor.   Looks like a crab pot went over the edge and said hello to Davey Jones.

All the floats are crushed to about 10% original size.




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[wildweeds]

Pay attention to what your doing and have a sharp knife readily available. I unfortunately have firsthand experiance to heartbreak. My stepdaughters grandfather died in a shrimping accident in the San Juans 9 years ago. They were in a 17 foot Boston whaler and were trying to help another boater by getting his pot freed from the bottoms grasp. Wind,swell tide and the pot puller contributed to flipping the boat and putting them all in the water. Grandpa's cause of death was hypothermia but we all suspect the sudden shock of being thrown in the water caused a heart event. Grandpa and his buddies were nice guys just lending a hand, I'm not that guy, my wife ragged,nagged and was paranoid for 5 years after that. I spent a good portion of my life on the water, fishing, commercial crabbing from 79 to 86, my dad owned that boat and was a rough navy guy. No life jackets worn on deck, think before you do and it best be quick thinking. I finally was pushed to the point of pointing out to the Mrs, I'm not that nice and no shrimp pot is worth anyone's life. Good luck and be safe, here's a Barbecue marinade for after.

1/4 cup olive oil,2 Tblsp lemon juice,3/4 tsp salt,1/4 tsp black pepper,1tsp Italian seasoning,1 tsp fresh chopped parsley, 2Tblsp minced garlic. Mix together , marinate shrimp 15 minutes to 2 hours (I do 45 min) skewer on bamboo , cook 2 minutes each side on barbecue.

[PsoasHunter]

Lots of really good information provided so far, thank you all so much! 

Given the advice posted and my research, we're going to head to Hood canal.  Seems like a better place to go for the first time and learn it.

So far there's been some good suggestions on launches up north.  Anyone have any experience or advice for launching at skokomish/potlach or union and shrimping the south end?  Looks like some deep water and shelfs just north of the bend, and then we could run up to a public beach in lilliwaup for some hama hama oysters while soaking 

[PsoasHunter]

Are you planning on pulling by hand from 300’+?

Everyone has to do it at least once right?!  I've done a lot worse things for a workout without near the reward.  I can't justify the money on a puller until we figure on whether this will be as addicting as all those other outdoor adventures that require too much gear. 

[treeclimber2852]

Having spent 4 hours today hauling line by hand - we stopped at Costco on the way home and got the Scotty.  One time was all we needed.  After we cooked up some of our catch today- it will be a regular event for us. 

[blackpowderhunter]

Are you planning on pulling by hand from 300’+?

Everyone has to do it at least once right?!  I've done a lot worse things for a workout without near the reward.  I can't justify the money on a puller until we figure on whether this will be as addicting as all those other outdoor adventures that require too much gear. 

if you're pulling by hand, note that YOU CAN NOT STOP.
once you stop, it relieves the pressure of keeping the prawns on the bottom of the pot and they will scoot right on out on ya.

[Rob]

Picts of our shrimping back in the day...

[carpsniperg2]

The one time I did it was with lokidog on here and it was a blast! Even though one of the first things he told me when I got their was the pot puller was toast and we had to do it by hand I think my biceps gained a couple inches after that workout lol

[Stein]

I used to get shrimp at Mike's Beach Resort about 50-60' down at night.  Like Rob, one guy would hold the net and the other would push them into it.  If you have multiple guys, one guy could sneak up behind them and just pick them up if they are looking at one of the other guys.  Some guys left out a crawfish trap with a can of Friskies in it when they went on a dive and picked it up on the way back.  At night they come up real shallow and some slopes are literally covered with them, it's really cool to hit them with a dive light and see 42 million eyes light up.

[Rob]

Indeed! Some of the most fun I had diving if I am honest!   

We figured out how to do one person harvest (after a year or two of trial and error including a guy who tried to build a powered sucker...  he got a total of one shrimp!)

Setup:
on our right hand, we had a light mounted to the back of our hand and carried a short stick/pair of tongs/etc.  In our left hand we had the bag that we could open and close with one hand (we found the spring loaded crab bags did not work well so just a large grab bag with the biggest hoop we could find).

the technique was:
1.  Put the light infront of them and hold the bag open behind them.
2.  They turn to focus on the light and when they do,  take the stick and tap them on the nose.  This would cause them to scoot backwards and shoot into the bag. 
3.  It is important to then sweep the bag forward as they go in.  They hit the bottom of the bag and entangle in the other shrimp and holes in the mesh bag. 
4.  Close the bag and look for another one.
5.  After bagging the shrimp, do a visual buddy check to make sure you are still in proximity of your buddy (at 180 feet it was super important to maintain buddy contact!)


Using this we could get one shrimp every 7 to 10 seconds.

Tips we found were:
A.  Work into the current to avoid silting out
B.  keep the bag a good 6-10 inches behind the shrimp.  When the shrimp face the light, they put their antennae out behind them and feel around.  If they touch the bag with the Antennae, the would scoot to the side of the bag rather than in the bag. 
C.  There was a point of diminishing returns on the bag.  As the bag fills up with shrimp. it gets harder to sweep it forward and the shrimp start to escape when you open the bag.  it helped to lay the bag out behind the shrimp in an L shape to trap them inside which you could do with a flick of the wrist as you brought the bag around.  That point of diminishing returns was about 100 shrimp in the bag which was fine as the limit was 80 and we always had to release some when we got to shore.
D.  I made a stick out of 1in PVC and I flattened the end like a spatula.  I also found that painting it black was better than a big white glowing stick!

We saw people use salad tongs to pick them up and that worked, but we could outcatch them 2-1 or more with our light/bag/stick technique.

[PsoasHunter]

Just got to potlach boat launch, we're the 3rd boat in line for the gates to open at 6. Nice to be missing the expected chaos of the launch!

[bear]

Just got to potlach boat launch, we're the 3rd boat in line for the gates to open at 6. Nice to be missing the expected chaos of the launch!

Hope the water isn’t too bad today!

[Stein]

Go get em boys!

We went out yesterday evening, boated 3 greenling and I think I had a cabby on twice but couldn't stick it.  Pulled the shrimp and headed home.

[The scout]

It is really windy out today, be careful out there.