Ocean crabing question

[Dan Christopher]

ok ,Ocean crabing out of nehalem bay in 30 feet of water.question is how much rope do i need on my traps??? 50feet???100feet???
i am guessing 50 feet would be ok.but i would like an answer from some one that ocean crabs :whazzup: . thanks guys

[Pilar]

Madwizerd ... my friend uses 100' with 2 sections. 40' for the bay and and add 60' for a total of 100' for the ocean. The shallow 30 ft crabbing is on at Nehalem and Tillamook but you fish in 60' - 70' at Newport to do any good.

Once you get into longer trap lines you should think about weighting the line so it will not float and snag boats as they go by.

My rigs are all either 60' or 90'. The short lines work at Tillamook but not at Newport.

[ 06-21-2002, 06:58 AM: Message edited by: Pilar ]

[craigc]

I've been crabbing off of Nehalam for the past couple of months, and the 75' foot rope I purchased has worked fine, so far, in 30' of water. You can crab in deeper waters, but it hasn't yielded us neither bigger, nor more crabs.

I like Pilar's idea of two sections of rope, if you plan to crab in-land and offshore, or you'll be forced to find a way to take up all the slack line when you're crabbing the bays.

Pilar is right about weighting down your line, when it gets to that length... with so many crab traps in the ocean, it's hard to avoid them. There's nothing more frightening to have your boat fly by 30' of floating line in the water, and seeing a buoy attached at the far end of the line... it's too easy to get it caught in your prop... so, it's in your interest in saving your traps to keep the line weighted... the boater/fisherman that tangles into your trap line will not be motivated to retie your buoy to your trap after he/she has cut away your line from around their prop !! they'll just let the ends drop into the water... just a thought...

another idea is to clip a buoy flag to the end of your crab line, when you're crabbing in the ocean... even with GPS, and fair seas, the $15 lifetime investment for making a buoy flag will make finding and recovering your traps easier... accidental poachers[right..] will also avoid pulling your traps, since few people use buoy flags, and you can spot them a good 1/2 mile away..

I'm curious to know where you've been crabbing off of Nehalam ??... we've observed that more keeper crabs are found further away from the jetty bar[ at least 3/4 mile either way]... Yesterday brought in 16 crabs, with a lot of females this time, much more than earlier in the year...

[Dan Christopher]

thanks for the info, i was going to put a 3 foot pvc pipe through 2 boeys and put a flag on it.but i love the doudle rope thing.i havent done any ocean crabbing yet i am looking at giveing it a crack.