Sunday I saw just about every boat had crab pots (or traps) and I saw lots of people pulling up crabs.

I looked into the regs. Bought 2 nice traps and rigged them as required.

But the regs don't give advice on what to place in the bait box. Or if there is somehing I sould look for n placing my pots. Depth etc.

Thanks for the info in advance.

Hunter

I have observed most people drop their pots in 40-60' of water. Some will go as deep as 90'.

If you are asking about bait, smelly chicken legs, or just any old chicken works great. So do salmon carcases. I know a guy that crabs out of Ilwaco and uses the cleaned salmon bodies for crab bait. But if you can't get a hold of salmon, chicken has always worked for me.

Cheap chicken will work great. If you have some fish carcasses they work great. When putting pots in I never go more than 40'. I usually go between 20 and 30 feet. I could never understand why someone would want to pull a pot up 90 feet for the same size crab you get and 20'??? If your pots are full 90' is a long pull

I save all the heads and tails off the salmon I catch. If out of salmon I use chicken or turkey. As for how deep depends on where you crabbing at and where the crabs are. Incoming tide I usually start at 35 feet by the time I pull them out they are usually deeper but 40 is what I am trying to target. Most of the crabbing I do is on the lower hood canal near tahuya. If you have a fish finder look for an area where you have flats dropping off to deeper water. If you dont have a fish finder or havent crabbed in an area look for where other people have theirs at hopefully they have more experience in the area. I will drop at 30 and 40 and 50 feet and the pot with the most when I pull it up. Is where I will set the rest of the pots.

I use turkey necks for bait. I've found that they don't fall apart as quickly as turkey/chicken legs so the bait stays intact longer.

About 15-30 feet is how deep I go. Just make sure you don't drop your traps in a place with too much current or else you'll find your traps a long way from where you dropped them, if at all.

you can go to your local safeway, qfc, albertsons in the fish dept and buy salmon heads .35 ea around there, they are real inexpensive, any old meat chicken turkey,

a good place to get salmon heads and the bones is johnny's seafood, the one in tacoma on ruston way has crab bait for .50 a pound and the one over by the new glass musuem has bait for .75.. uaually hit it before i go crabbing, ive also seen people usuing pork, herring, sardines, and tuna fish in a can with holes punched in it works well too..has anyone crabbed below the hood canal bridge on the pontoons? and how did you do, any keepers? **berkley boy**

Hunter,

If you want fish trimings for bait, I have great success with Steelhead or Atlantic salmon. These are both from the tout family and are very oily.

Chicken parts or turkey parts are great too, be sure to use fresh, and poke the meat with a knife to let the juices leech out. Old or rotting bait is NO GOOD!!!!!

Cigar

Hey guys, where can you find the male crabs at shilshole??? My friend and I dropped our pot just north of the launch by all the houses like everyone else but all we got were female crabs!!

If all you are catching are females than the area is picked over.

The male/female ratio definately went down in the last past week. One week ago, 35 crabs, 10 males. This week, 50 crabs, 6 males. Guess we helped thin those big boys out, sorry.