Outdoors

POSTED: Thursday, Oct. 29, 2009

FISHING NOTEBOOK: Area fall crabbing spots to reopen

Bellingham area sport crabbers will have an option within striking distance this fall.

While Marine Area 7 and other northern inland waters were tapped out during the summer for their 2009 recreational catch allocation and won't reopen, Puget Sound waters southwest of Whidbey Island and between Seattle and Bremerton have sport quota to spare and will.

State fish and wildlife shellfish managers announced Tuesday that marine areas 9 (except for the Hood Canal lobe) and 10 will reopen Sunday, Nov. 1.

Sport crabbing by any legal method may occur seven days a week with five male Dungeness (minimum 6 1/4-inch shell) and six either-sex red rock crab bag limits.

Also, immediately upon retaining a legal Dungeness, crabbers must record in ink their harvest on the 'winter' catch record card.

This opening is slated to continue to Saturday, Jan. 2.

At least for the first month of this fall-winter crabbing season, these same two zones also will be open for salmon fishing including hatchery-origin chinook. Marine Area 9 salmon angling closes Monday, Nov. 30 while Marine Area 10 stays open for adipose clipped chinook and other salmon through Sunday, Jan. 31.

Certain Whidbey Island Admiralty Inlet side beaches and near-shore waters also host angling for returning winter-run steelhead.

SPORT REPORTING LAGS

Despite the imposition of the $10 add-on civil penalty for failing to report and the ease of an online portal, less than half of the sport crabbers (104,634 of more than 236,000) who took out Puget Sound licenses made a report of their summer catches in the September period.

Rich Childers, WDFW shellfish policy lead said sport catch reports give managers information vital to providing opportunity for personal use gatherers. The department is mandated by fish and wildlife commission direction and a federal court settlement to manage Dungeness crab fisheries according to a catch allocation system.

With the fair summer season weather and increased effort, sport catch rates were up in many areas, said Childers.

Persons with winter crab catch cards who don't intend fish this fall are urged to turn them in by mail now. For crabbers who continue, the closeout reporting period for this late season is Jan. 3-15.

GETTING TO CRABBING WATERS

Whidbey Island access points for Marine Area 9 begin south of Partridge Point south west of Oak Harbor off state routes 20 and 525 including the launches at Fort Casey State Park near Keystone and further south at Bush Point.

Off the Interstate 5 corridor, boat ramps at Edmonds and in West Seattle offer access to Marine Area 9 and 10. Would-be crabbers and salmon anglers may launch in Everett or Mukilteo but have to motor south of the Possession Point-shipwreck line.

Doug Huddle, the Herald's outdoors correspondent, is retired from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and since 1983 has written a weekly column hunting and fishing column that appears Fridays. E-mail him at doug.huddle@bellinghamherald.com.