TIPS ON SUCCESSFUL  CRABBING

 

 

 

So Many Different Type of Pots, Which One do I Buy?  Here I am sure that if you talk to 10 different crabbers, you will get many different suggestions.  Probably the most important is the ones that catch crab.  Broad subject.    You will find the economy fold up Danielson make to expensive stainless steel pots.  Some will be square, octagon,  while others will be round.  When baited properly & placed where there are crabs, they all will bring home enough for a crab salad.  One company that builds a variety of crab traps (or pots if you prefer) is  Willapa Marine Products Inc.  It is important to pick a pot that has a large enough door on the top to easily remove the crab.  Trying to remove a live unwilling crab from the entrance door or just folding one side down does not really cut it when you are trying to remove something that has claws that can badly cut into a finger if you get it in the wrong spot & the crab does not want to be caught.

 

I have some of each type, but recently I am leaning more to the more inexpensive ones simply because of the crab thieves out there.  I have had them just steal the crab from a cheap pot, but if they pull your expensive pot, you can be assured that the crab are not all they will take with them.

 

One way to tell if someone has pulled your pots is if you set them out in a specific location by triangulation or GPS & they come up about 100 yard away from where you left them, someone has probably checked them for you.  What they do is pull the float on one side of their boat, pull the line in & throw the float back over the other side.  They just keep pulling from one side & throwing on the other.  When the pot comes up, they "Borrow" your crab & throw the pot over the other side.   If someone comes close, they just throw the line & everything overboard & motor off.  You can not get close enough to them to actually see what they just did, or probably not be able to recognize them or the boat.  This 100 yards is about how long it takes them to pull your pot & get it back in if any tide is running.

 

Difference Between Pots & Rings;  Some states may have different requirements for different areas or times of the year.   (1) A pot or trap as it is sometimes called will (should) continue to catch crab as long as it has bait in the bait container & still in the water.  So they need to be pulled every day or two.  (2) A ring on the other hand may just be a large ring with netting attached to it & when baited & thrown into a likely spot will also attract crab.  Except the law says for these the crab have to be able to have free access to & from the ring while in the water.  This changes things immensely.   These are normally found by crabbers who crab off docks where they throw then out, wait 20 minutes & pull them back in.  Here you will need more bait as the crab will eat it.  In practice when you pull the ring in the sides raise a little making a kind of a shallow netted bucket.  They will usually clamp onto the bait allowing you to pull them in.

 

One more complicated ring that looks like a pot has a sliding outer netting that when on the bottom, the ring falls to the ocean floor allowing the crab free movement, when the pot is being pulled this sliding ring & netting is raised crating a trap.

 

Another pot that I saw at a 2008 Sportsmans show was a round steel one made kind of like 2 large flowers only in reverse, (Daisys come to mind) with on on top & another on the bottom.  These are assemble kind of like a reverse clamshell.  The pedals of the flowers are a thin metal springs pointing inward, but a crab can enter anywhere around the perimeter.   The top & bottom are 2 separate, but almost identical units.  The crab have an easy time getting in, but would have a very hard tome getting out.

 

Improvements;  The square economy fold up ones like Danielson makes (and possibly others also) will usually need modifications to make them function best.   These doors do have a stop so they can not swing out, but they do swing swing inward with just a small current.   Crab can get out because every time the door opens to let in a crab if there is a current, it creates a doorway for the ones inside to leave if they decide to.   To modify these, I usually attach a length (4") of 1/4" pencil lead on each side door near the bottom.  Just wrap it around the mesh & they won’t swing open in the current.  The extra weight doesn’t seem  to matter at all to the crabs when they enter.  Crimp in place with channel locks if needed. 

 

The Better Ones;   The better ones will have multiple entry runways that are raised up off the floor a few inches.  These are not affected by current as bad & they make the crab climb up to exit when other crabs are entering. 

 

Season Your Pots;   Some pots are rubber coated.  This may be to help protect the metal to some degree, but think about your old chemistry class a bit.  When you put a metal object in a liquid you get a small voltage.  If this pot is steel & say the wire is stainless steel when you put it into saltwater, you have created a battery.  This voltage may well be a detriment to your crabbing activities.  The commercial ports all have a zinc anode attached to them to elevate this problem.  Now if you do put a steel or cast iron weight in the bottom of the pot, but let it set out & rust.   You may also consider placing an old zinc anode off your boat or motor on the pot's metal weight.  If the right combination of metals, there can be electrolysis, which is in reality a small electrical charge that may repel the crabs.

 

Along these same lines about all the pots need more weight in them to be effective & from not having a fast moving tide move your pot even many miles.  A steel bar about 1/2" X 3" X 18" is about right on both sides.   A cast iron window weight secured with electrical tape to bottom inside pot works fine.  One on each side is OK.  Sometimes you can get a large stack at a garage sale for a few bucks.   Now when you weight the pot, it will usually be with new steel.  Set the pot out in the rain for a few months to allow the steel to rust.  Less new metal exposed & the rust is more conducive to what crab may encounter on the ocean floor.

 

Weighted Crab Pot Line. Washington State law says you will have your line weighted.  The reason is that if it is not, then at a slack tide most nylon/plastic lines will float near your float.  This can cause problems with other boaters getting it around their props.  Many crabbers use the snap on line weights.   In use, throw out your pot, & let out your line, when the pot hits the bottom, snap a weight on then.  Some simply wrap 1/4" lead sinker wire around the line.  If you are using a long line, you may have to put another weight on before you get to the float.  One thing I do is to make all my lines in increments of 50 feet, and connect then with a stainless snap.  This way I can adjust how much line I need for each pot in any given water depth.

 

Oversized Float is Bad.  If the float is very large it can get tossed around in a wind.  It can walk a light pot right across the bottom.  Use a float that is the right size for your pot.  However I find that sometimes 2 floats tied in tandem about 6 feet apart work well.   No matter what float I use I  will tie a 1/4" line about 4' long onto the top of the float that has a small ring float attached to this line.  I call it a tag float.  What this does is give me an indicator as to which direction the current or tide is running & then gives me a direction to approach the pot when motoring in for a retrieval without the chance of fouling my prop in the upstream line.

 

Use Flag on Pot. You can help locate the pot when returning to it by adding a 3/4" PVC pipe thru the float, attach a stop above & below the float.  Let this pipe extend down 16" or so with a 3# weight around it, this makes the float sit upright in the water no matter what lack of current is there.  Above the float let the pipe extend 3' up & attach a flag or different colored ribbons to it.  This makes finding the pot a lot easier, especially if there is a little chop on the water when you are ready to recover it.  You would be surprised that many times you can not spot your pot buoy within 100 yards of it.

 

Escape hole .  Escape holes are required in some states in case the pot is lost, so it will not "keep fishing".   Some holes are just that, in the upper part of the pots, while others use a cotton cord to close a large hole.  The theory is that the cord will rot & allow the crab to escape.

 

Use Good Bait.  It’s true that crabs are bottom scavengers and they’ll eat anything.  It’s also true that, just like most of us, they like some things more than others.  Put your crab pot out amid a bunch of other people’s posts and the pot with the best bait wins.  Tradition says use fish heads, fish guts, etc.  They work, but if you want to catch more crabs use prime stuff.  Albacore and halibut filets are really good.  Sweeten it up with some anchovies (chopped into thirds) and you have prime bait.  Also pretty darn good are squid and herring combos (herring also chopped into thirds).  Rockfish filets work as do rockfish carcasses, but the best bait are the ones above.  One bait that does work is salmon.   But it is pretty mediocre, not as good as the white meat fish.

 

Another thing you can try is to put some Smelly Jelly, or other scent on your bait box.  Smell Jelly makes a crab bait scent.

One of our club members has put a new product to the test & it appears to come out the winner.  This company grinds up fish carcasses & palletizes them for crab bait.

 

Use a Bait Container.   Use the containers with holes that are made for especially for pots, and suspend one from the top of the pot.  Don’t put the bait on the bottom of the pot, the silt collects in it and the first couple of crabs can eat it or move it around and out of the pot.  There is one bait container that is basically a rubber 1/4" mesh mesh bag with a snap on the top.  The bait just doesn’t work as well when just wired into the bottom of the pot.  When using a container, you should fill the container about two thirds full.  Leave room for a little water circulation to spread the scent over a large an area as you can.

 

Don’t Throw Your Old Bait Overboard.  Pretty dumb to throw the old bait into an area where you are putting your pots right back into.  Now you are not only competing with the other pots, and your own old bait.

 

Put Out Pots in a Straight Line.  Don’t put your pots any old way.  A storm comes through or there’s a big swell and you can’t find them.  Take a reading on your GPS when you throw out your first one, then follow a compass heading to dump the other pots in a straight line.  They should be about 100 yards apart, or a little more.  When you dump out your last pot, take another GPS reading.  Now you can find all of your pots by just following the line you took laying them out.

 

Crabs Move and So Should You.   Crabs do migrate around trying to find food, and the hot spot yesterday may be dead today.  Don’t continue to put your pots in the same place, move around.  And if a spot is not hot, come back to it in a couple of weeks later to see if it has picked up.

  

Be Observant.  When dropping off a pot, check area and the tide first.  If you drop off a pot in an area of no current at LOW  SLACK tide, and do not allow a extra long amount of line.  You can come back at a higher tide & the water is really ripping, and your pot float will not be in sight.  When this first happened to me I was sure some no-good, dirty rotten, pot snatching, SOB had done his job.  No, it was just me, and not being observant.  I came back the next week-end & recovered the pot.  They say that good judgment comes from the experience of bad judgment.

 

Ocean Crabbing. Remember when crabbing the ocean you want to be in at least 65 or 70 feet of water if you return in adverse conditions you want your pots not in the surf and can be picked up without danger.  Be sure to use bait boxes to keep them fishing all day. 

 

Put a Noise in the Pot. Here is a trick that was passed on by a RV park owner at Westport.  Take an empty soda can & put a couple of small rocks in it, punch a hole in it so you can tie it inside the pot.  It is supposed to make a rattling noise that nearly duplicates the noise of crab eating & is supposed to attract crab. 

 

 

Originated 05-27-2004  Last Updated 12-13-2009
LeeRoy Wisner

 

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