Outdoors

POSTED: Thursday, Jun. 25, 2009

Sport crabbing season slowly unfolds

The initial recreational crabbing seasons of 2009 got underway Wednesday, June 18 in several of Washington's inland water locales, unfortunately far afield from our home waters.

Dungeness and red rock crab in the Strait of Juan de Fuca marine areas 4 East (east of the Bonilla-Tatoosh line) and 5 (centered on Sekiu) together with Marine Area 13 (South Sound) were the first to become fair game for the summer. These waters are available seven days a week through Saturday, Jan. 2 for personal use crab gathering.

The bulk of Puget Sound and Strait of Juan de Fuca waters open to sport crab catching Wednesday, July 1, but on an abbreviated weekly schedule Wednesdays through Saturdays each week. The list of management zones opening includes marine areas 6, 8.1, 8.2, 9, 10 and 11.

The expected closing for these zones is Monday, Sept. 7, though any of them could close sooner if monitoring finds sport catches have reached or exceeded the non-treaty sport quota.

Wednesday, July 15 local waters including marine areas 7 South and 7 East open, again on the four-day-per-week restriction Wednesdays through Saturdays.

The last sport crabbing pots to drop will be in Hood Canal waters (Wednesday, July 29) and finally in Marine Area 7 North Wednesday, Aug. 12.

All marine area seven zones will be open until Wednesday, Sept. 30. Hood Canal will stay open until Saturday, Jan. 2.

The 2009 sport seasons have been attenuated in several areas for biological reasons, according to state shellfish managers.

In Hood Canal, the delayed opening is intended to offer maximum protection to breeding females in the depressed Dungeness crab population there.

Managers also say that the two-week deferral of the opening in Marine Area 7 South is because of the apparent late shell-molt this year. Guidelines call for at least 80 percent of crabs in a management locale to be in hard-shell condition for an opening to take place.

LEGAL METHODS

Sport crab gatherers have great latitude in the methods thay may use to catch these much-sought-after delectable crustaceans.

According to the rules, once the season opens crab fishers may legally use set-and-forget pots, star traps, ring nets, snares (used principly on fishing lines), hoops or hoe type implements and bare hands.

It is not lawful to use any device that pierces the crab's shell, however.

Regulations permit individual crab gatherers to operate up to two pots, ring nets or star traps. If you leave any of these three catchers unattended in Washington waters it must be marked with a half red and half white buoy with your name and address written on it in indelible ink.

Trap style pots are the most popular form of crabbing gear and are suitable for all fishable depths where Dungeness and red rock crab dwell. Fully enclosed pots (traps) must meet other specifications for door and mesh size and they must have releasable flaps tied with biodegradable natural fiber cordage that will rot through and let captured animals go if the pot becomes lost and abandoned.

Star traps and ring nets also are effective devices in deeper locales but the latter require adept handling and a quick haul to be consistently successful.

Fishing pole deployed snares are less effective but are often fished from harbor piers and jetties or natural rock points into 10- to 25-foot deep waters.

On ebb tides in otherwise shallow bays when intertidal marine waters recede to a wading depth, hoop nets or hoe style implements on five foot handles are a good way to prospect eelgrass beds for unsuspecting crabs.

Northeast Samish Bay on a minus tide is one locale where waders can come up with crab but don't be surprised at the speed with which they can scuttle away.

Of course, divers may gather legal size Dungeness crabs by hand, measuring for minimum size before tucking them into their mesh bags.

RULES TO CRAB BY

Washington regulations require all personal-use crab gatherers, regardless of age to have a valid Washington fishing license plus an endorsement to fish for crab in greater Puget Sound. The endorsements are $3 for resident persons age 15 and older and free to anyone age 14 and under.

Accompanying the license and endorsement are two Dungeness crab catch record cards, one for the summer season (date of opening to Sept. 7) and a winter season one (Sept. 8 to date of closing). Everyone who catches and retains Dungeness crab must immediately record the catch and then file each of their reports in the proscribed time period.

All holders of Puget Sound Dungeness crab catch cards must make their two annual reports regardless of success to avoid a $10 penalty next year. The first reporting period is in early September.

Catch record cards and mandatory reporting are not required of sport crabbers who ply ocean waters from the Columbia River north to the Canadian border.

Soft-shell crab either Dungeness or red rock not meeting the finger pressure 'pinch' test described in the sport-fishing regulations pamphlet (page 130) must be returned alive and unharmed to the deep.

The legal daily limit for Dungeness is five hard-shelled males measuring at least 6 1/4 inches across the carapace or shell (measured inside the points). Crabbers may keep up to six hard-shelled red rock crab, either sex, that have shells at least five inches across. Red rocks need not be recorded on catch cards.

With a weekly closed period in place, Sundays through Tuesdays, crabbers must remember to pull any gear they have in the water no latter than one hour after sunset Saturday evenings except through the Labor Day weekend.

Also it is against the rules to set or retrieve gear from any vessel from one hour after sunset to one hour before sunrise.

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