By David Hurley
One of the most-highly anticipated openers along the coast is the recreational Dungeness crab opener, and after a delay of several months during the 2015 season due to high levels of domoic acid, the sport crab season began on November 5, 2016.
10-crab limits have been the rule out of the Golden Gate and Bodega Bay, and after a slow start in Half Moon Bay, crab limits were on again just before Thanksgiving Day.
The sport limit on a party boat was raised to 10 Dungeness crab in 2015 to match the limit on a private vessel, and easy limits were the rule for those boats setting in deep water on the opening weekend.
The commercial Dungeness crab season opened below Point Reyes on November 15th as the region north of Point Reyes to the Sonoma/Mendocino County Line is closed for commercial crabbing at the present time. Sport crabbing remains open in this region.
Knowing that the commercial pressure will potentially put a damper on obtaining crab limits, I booked a trip on the Happy Hooker out of Berkeley on the November 11th Veteran’s Day holiday. Accompanying me was my oldest grandson, 11-year old Alexander Hurley of Stockton, along with my 6th grade teaching partner Neil Simpson of Lodi and his girlfriend Rachel Hall, also a teacher in Lodi Unified School District.
A big swell has been the constant along the coast since the opener, and the swell was expected to be huge once again on Veteran’s Day. Not wanting to ruin my grandson for life on the ocean, I discussed the ocean conditions with his father the night before. Alex was pretty excited to go, and he was unconcerned about the potential of the swell. As it turned out, my concerns were thankfully for naught as he handled the trip without any difficulties.
The swell would affect the rockfish bite along the coast so all of the party boats ran out to the Farallon Islands at the start of the day. The rockfish clearly were off of the bite, although they were all over the meter on the bottom. You could see the spots of fish hugging the rocks, but getting them to bite was a challenge. The boat ended up with around 3/4th limits of rockfish for 34 fishermen, and Alex and I settled for a combined limit between us.
There were a few lingcod landed, and Crystal Nguyen of Fremont was able to pick up the jackpot at 15 pounds on a shrimp fly from the rear of the boat.
The Dungeness crab is why we were here, and the crab were outstanding. Pulling only 16 pots, we put in 340 commercial to jumbo grade of Dungeness although five pots came up empty despite not possessing a single hole.
Deckhand Mike Verrone assembled a good team, and we worked through the pots with efficiency with Danny Higginbotham, aka ‘Danny Boy’ running the block, Verrone on the hydraulics, and Alex and I on the bait rigs while Captain Jim Smith expertly guided the boat.
The crab are definitely holding in deep water as shallow strings are not producing. Captain Trent Slate of Shelter Cove Sport Fishing had a similar report with 60 rockfish and 6 lings on Saturday along with 46 Dungeness crab. He said, “The fishing was much better on Saturday than it was on Friday. as we had to work hard for limits on Friday. The crabbing in deep water is best, and I am concerned about the number of crab out there.”
Crab limits have been the rule out of Bodega Bay with Captain Rick Powers of Bodega Bay Sport Fishing returning with easy limits of Dungeness on all trips since the opener. Half Moon Bay was another story, but Captain Tom Mattusch of the Huli Cat, the only large party boat out of the harbor running combination trips, has been able to get located with limits on all trips.
Monterey Bay has been much slower for Dungeness, but there are signs of hope with the Captain Tinker Neece of the Check Mate out of Chris’s Fishing Trips returning with a high water mark of 6 crab/angler on Sunday, November 20th.
Having your crab boiled upon return is an added bonus, and this is still available out of Half Moon Bay at Princeton Sea Food and on the wharf at Monterey while the City of Berkeley has closed the operation at their marina.
Since we are unable to monitor ourselves by using common sense, it certainly has become necessary to provide monitoring by allowing crab pots to be dropped 24 hours before they are allowed to pull the pots or keep all from dropping pots until safe light on the morning of the opener.
Party boats are in a particular dilemma with the enforcement of these regulations as huge loads of passengers put on the boat along with the weight of up to 45 crab pots. Going through the bar with a huge swell with a big load is another dangerous situation. Their other option was to drop the pots in the middle of the night, leaving the captains vulnerable to the 12-hour limitation on being at the helm within a 24-hour period.
The combination trips will continue until the December 31st rockfish closure south of Point Arena, and the party boats have been filling quickly on the weekends. These trips are a great value with the average price of a Dungeness in the $16.00 range, plus they always provide the opportunity for a grandfather to bring out a grandchild when the conditions are right for that extra limit.
The sport Dungeness opener was not without its challenges, and for the first time in memory, the rock crab season closed on October 29th, leaving no justification for dropping crab pots earlier than the opening day of the recreational season.
The season technically opened at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday morning, and it was reported that a number of small private boats and even kayaks went out during the midnight hours to drop crab pots. In addition, out of Bodega Bay, there were hundreds of fishermen hanging from the north and south jetties tossing crab snares in the middle of the night while shining lights from headlamps.