Sunday, September 11, 2011

Crabbing


First Day of Crab Season July 15

Were you ready? I wasn’t. Friday afternoon found me a bit behind. No crab pot or fishing license. I pulled it all together though and the pot was down in Chuckanut Bay at 5:15 PM.

High overcast skies and calm seas, I luxuriated by just bobbing around near Teddy Bear Cove. My day had been full of shoveling gravel so I was content to drift and not paddle for exercise.

For entertainment, aside from watching the motor craft zoom around checking their pots, I was plunking a baited crab catcher with cables to snare crabs. I had this attached to a short fishing pole, the line dangling in about 30 feet of water.

Crabs were curious about it all right, good old chicken parts attracts them every time. I caught a few but realized I wasn’t willing to drop the crabs between my legs and the bucket I brought was the wrong one and wouldn’t fit in the cockpit very well. I let a couple of tasty critters go.

Surprisingly enough a 3 foot dog fish (shark) got entangled in the snare and put up quite a fight. I didn't have a fish bonker to kill it nor a knife to free it so I had to sort of play with it to loosen the snare.

The shark manage to get the snare behind is pectoral fin and wasn’t happy. He splashed a lot and got me all wet. They have a row (or two) of razor sharp teeth and a stinger on their back so grabbing the thing was out of the question. The water was clear so I could see that I was making headway or tailway I shoud say and he finally slipped through the noose.

Shortly after that  a good sized tour boat came by closer than I would have liked. No one was out on the deck looking at the view, there were just a bunch of old people sitting down inside feeding their faces. I could have mooned them and no one would have noticed. The idea of mooning someone from a kayak is a rather humous thought, since so much could go wrong doing it.

Then the weather changed and I hadn't paid attention because I was too busy releasing MR Razor Sharp Teeth and laughing at myself and my stupid ideas. I quickly pulled the crab pot and made it back to where I had parked the car just as it began to really rain.

I only had two keepers but that's OK, they are always the best fresh. Alison had the water boiling when I came home so I plunked them in and we finished them off before we went to bed. Can't get much fresher than that.

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