Any Crabbing Reports?

[brshooter]

Have the urge for a crab feed. Talked to Tackle Time and they said that there were a lot of soft crab in the river. Any recent crabbing reports from T-Bay? Just curious about what condition the crab are in down in the bays.

[Sore Back]

We are picking up a few average quality crab out of Netarts bay. Won't be excellent again until Sept., Oct. and Nov. this fall.

[grumman16]

Hit Netarts on sunday. Only got 6. All but one had to be measured. All were hard shells. Shad worked best, chicken didn't get us any keepers.

I didn't get on the water till half way through the slack tide due to an early high tide. That may have been why we got so few.

Sore Back,
How much longer do you think Netarts will be putting out crabs? This is my first year crabbing there, so I'm still learning. Are there months when there's no point in going (cuz of soft shells or molting)?

-G16

[Sore Back]

Good morning Grumman.

As we live here, we crab the bay quite often. Our findings are that it's a year around opportunity. Best times are slow ebb and flood periods or high and low slack tides. As mentioned above, the 3 months of fall are the most productive with many crab, full bodied and in the 7 to 8 inch size. You can however find a solid crab or two the balance of the year. It just takes quite an effort.

You are right about the shad. We freeze as many as we can stuff into the bait freezer. They really work. As our bait supply is going down, we are looking forward to May.

Next week will have some excellent tides for dumping the pots and digging clams in the morning followed by pulling the pots in the late afternoon.

Good luck

Sore Back

[TundraIII]

Sore Back.....you are a fortunate man! I'm jealous....used to live in Tillamook, wish I could get back there....

[Cowlitz77]

As a kid we used to travel to Netarts to dig what we called blue clams. Have not done this in years, are they still there to dig?

[grumman16]

Sore Back,
Thanks for the info. Here's another question for ya - what areas do you crab at low slack? I've always crabbed around high slack. Can you get out from the public ramp ok at low? I usually focus on the area between the public ramp and the opening of the bay. I was wondering if that is still good at low slack.

On a similar topic, is there any place that rents equipment for clamming and will show you the ropes on how to do this? The wife and I have been wanting to give this a shot for awhile, but neither of us have ever done it so we don't know where to begin.

Feel free to email me if you want.

Thanks,
G16

[Sore Back]

Grumman,

Low water does not cause a problem launching or leaving the ramp at Netarts. Best crabbing is away from rhe main channel in the bay. Less serious tial flow and fewer sanded in pots. Netarts bay is one of the cleanest bays on the Pacific coast. Due to a lack of fresh water entering the bay, the amount of salinity makes the entire bay a crab haven. You can catch crab at about any location on the bay. One thing we also like about the area is a lack of dairy "green water" irrigation on fields which leach into an estuary.

Clamming, all you need is a bucket, shovel and fairly low tide. If you would like to make a trip over to the clam beds, Get back to me and I will be happy to show you how and where.

Any time

Sore Back

[fishchuck]

Went last week too Nestucca bay by myself,got 8crabs, they were very good eating, a little soft.

[greenbuttskunk]

a friend crabbed hammond both days last weekend and it was pretty slow. Ended up with 10 keepers avg. each day, but worked hard for even that many.
The commercials have picked it pretty clean I'd say. Not sure about other bays.
Good luck!
GBs

[steelhead22]

It's amazing the impact the commercial crabbing has. Before it opened we could go out there and get a couple limits in no time, now it takes a lot of work/time just to get 5 or 6. It's like night and day.

[Abalone]

Last summer I crabbed the Ocean from Nehalem bay North. Got my limit but the crabs were all small. That is right at the size limit. Down south the crabs are always bigger. I noticed the crabs at
Jetty Fishery were bigger so I asked them why. They told me the big Commercial boats work the
coast down to Cape Lookout and pretty much clean out all the bigger crab so they always crab
south of Cape lookout where there is less Commercial pressure. Oh well smaller crabs taste good too.

Commercial crabbers accound for Ninty Five Percent of the annual Catch. And you thought the
Gillnetters were greedy. But not to worry the New Shell fish liscense will fix things right up.