Subject: First crabbing expedition today - 2 keepers caught in 1 hour
I've never done crabbing before. Family wanted to go crabbing today so off we went with all the new crabbing gear I had stocked up with over past few months in preparation for the request. 🙂 My requirement to family was I'll provide the boat and crabbing gear and they have to buy the bait, cook all the keepers and invite 1st Mate and me to a Crabfest dinner.
Well we ventured not much more than 2 miles north of our marina in Puget Sound, got to a depth of 60 feet, slung the pot over the side and waited a bit to see that the buoys were AOK and floating well. We then sped off to visit some other areas and returned about 90 minutes later to where we drop the pot. It was easy to find the drop point by reviewing our travelled track lines on the chart plotter. We had circled around a bit to align the boat to face into the swell to avoid rocking too much and this left a noticeable small set of circular tracks on the chartplotter Chart display.
During our 90 minutes or so running about we came across two R-21EC boats. One was a red hulled R-21EC being handled solo. The boat had a small outboard presumably for fishing and the like. I slowed down to a crawl and circled the R-21EC waving at its captain. He returned the waves from all of us with a big smile on his face. He then started pointing his hand furiously at his stern and yelling something at us. I could not make out what he was saying. So I circled the R-21EC some more and got a bit closer without alarming the R-21EC and this time my son could hear what he was saying… “I love your outboard…. I love your outboard" where upon we slowly moved away with him holding two thumbs up in the air and grinning like crazy. It’s so nice to meet other RT tugnutters on the water. We are certainly a family of kindred spirits IMO.
My son did the job of hooking the line between the red/white buoys and my large Low Flow drag bright yellow buoy once he figured out how to extend the boat pole and lock the sections from further extension. Then using the Brutus pot hauler for the first time the pot was hauled in with great ease to everybody’s delight. It’s named BRUTUS for good reasons, right ? To our delight we had 5 crabs. Two were huge keepers. 😀 It was a bit chaotic at first as no-one wanted to put their hands in the pot. I aint going to do it said one person…. OK then, granddad will have to do it… and so I did.
The three grandchildren (and of course my son and daughter in law) were ecstatic and overjoyed with the catch. It was my job to get hold of the crabs needing to be returned to the water. I quickly threw a small one over board without paying too much attention as how to or where and it hit the chrome pole holding the cockpit canopy and my grandson was sad and said "what a way to go...."..... 😉 He is a bit sensitive about these sort of things…. No matter, our first keeper catch was two huge crabs for dinner. Yippeee.
It was a very fun trip and our first crabbing expedition. It went very well and the crabbing gear performed well for us. We all agreed we MUST do it again. My oldest granddaughter of 5 yrs old gave me a big hug and said I love you granddad. Those words made my day for sure.
P.S During the cruise I wanted to know how well my cabin roof mounted SeaEagle 385ft FastTrack would survive with the boat going at speed. I pushed the boat up to around 38 mph for several minutes and the kayak did not sail off into the sea. I could see it through the cabin roof hatches and could see it was fluttering a bit but that was all. My secure strap down held up. I bet it caused the boat to burn more fuel though as the aerodynamic drag on the kayak must have an influence on fuel burn.
I've never done crabbing before. Family wanted to go crabbing today so off we went with all the new crabbing gear I had stocked up with over past few months in preparation for the request. 🙂 My requirement to family was I'll provide the boat and crabbing gear and they have to buy the bait, cook all the keepers and invite 1st Mate and me to a Crabfest dinner.
Well we ventured not much more than 2 miles north of our marina in Puget Sound, got to a depth of 60 feet, slung the pot over the side and waited a bit to see that the buoys were AOK and floating well. We then sped off to visit some other areas and returned about 90 minutes later to where we drop the pot. It was easy to find the drop point by reviewing our travelled track lines on the chart plotter. We had circled around a bit to align the boat to face into the swell to avoid rocking too much and this left a noticeable small set of circular tracks on the chartplotter Chart display.
During our 90 minutes or so running about we came across two R-21EC boats. One was a red hulled R-21EC being handled solo. The boat had a small outboard presumably for fishing and the like. I slowed down to a crawl and circled the R-21EC waving at its captain. He returned the waves from all of us with a big smile on his face. He then started pointing his hand furiously at his stern and yelling something at us. I could not make out what he was saying. So I circled the R-21EC some more and got a bit closer without alarming the R-21EC and this time my son could hear what he was saying… “I love your outboard…. I love your outboard" where upon we slowly moved away with him holding two thumbs up in the air and grinning like crazy. It’s so nice to meet other RT tugnutters on the water. We are certainly a family of kindred spirits IMO.
My son did the job of hooking the line between the red/white buoys and my large Low Flow drag bright yellow buoy once he figured out how to extend the boat pole and lock the sections from further extension. Then using the Brutus pot hauler for the first time the pot was hauled in with great ease to everybody’s delight. It’s named BRUTUS for good reasons, right ? To our delight we had 5 crabs. Two were huge keepers. 😀 It was a bit chaotic at first as no-one wanted to put their hands in the pot. I aint going to do it said one person…. OK then, granddad will have to do it… and so I did.
The three grandchildren (and of course my son and daughter in law) were ecstatic and overjoyed with the catch. It was my job to get hold of the crabs needing to be returned to the water. I quickly threw a small one over board without paying too much attention as how to or where and it hit the chrome pole holding the cockpit canopy and my grandson was sad and said "what a way to go...."..... 😉 He is a bit sensitive about these sort of things…. No matter, our first keeper catch was two huge crabs for dinner. Yippeee.
It was a very fun trip and our first crabbing expedition. It went very well and the crabbing gear performed well for us. We all agreed we MUST do it again. My oldest granddaughter of 5 yrs old gave me a big hug and said I love you granddad. Those words made my day for sure.
P.S During the cruise I wanted to know how well my cabin roof mounted SeaEagle 385ft FastTrack would survive with the boat going at speed. I pushed the boat up to around 38 mph for several minutes and the kayak did not sail off into the sea. I could see it through the cabin roof hatches and could see it was fluttering a bit but that was all. My secure strap down held up. I bet it caused the boat to burn more fuel though as the aerodynamic drag on the kayak must have an influence on fuel burn.
