Crab Fishing the first week of June

[mauther]

I am going to be spending the first week of June cruising the Gulf Islands and was wondering the crab and prawn fishing should be like?

Any suggestions on where to go and what to use would be greatly appreciated

 

[knucklebuster]

Watch for on again/off again prawn closures.
For crabs, look for other bouys.
Fulford harbour is ring net(dip net) only.No cage style traps.

 

[Rum Buddies]

thats interesting, any idea why no cage traps?

 

[knucklebuster]

Geuss it gives the crabs a better chance. Makes it so you pretty much have to sit there and keep pulling. Been that way for years. Same in Pender Harbour.

 

[salmon9]

Mid summer it slows down for prawns and crab, but still worth while. Watch the regulations, keep an eye out for location by watching for bouys, give some distance to other floats, use good bait and you should do OK. Someone set their prawn traps on top of mine and I ended up yesterday having to hand pull two sets of traps at once and unwrapping their traps from mine (he had yellow poly with no weight on the line that I could see).

 

[Despy]

There has been as saying around for years that you shouldn`t take crabs in a month without an "R" in it. I know that last summer we tried it and they didn`t have much meat in them. I`m not sure but isn`t this when you get a lot of hollow soft shells?

 

[Pippen]

Mauther...

Around some of the islands in Trincomoli channel. Parker Island was good for us in the past, but I have not tried there in the past couple of years.

If you are coming up from Victoria or if you do get down to Cowichan Bay we have always done well there.

 

[SIR]

Hey Despy,

I'm pretty sure the month with "R" thing is for shellfish, predominantly oysters, not for crabs. Oysters convert a large percentage of their body mass to sperm during the summer months hence are very liquidy rather than being firm and plump as in the winter months with "R"s in.

Crabs grow my molting their shells. A soft shell grows under the large one which then then splits and is discarded leaving the soft shell to calcify as a larger shell. Soft shell crabs tend to have little meat in them. Young crabs molt their shells fairly often with the process slowing down as they get older. I'm fairly sure they molt year round so I think you may just have been unlucky enough to catch a number of soft shell crabs during the summer months.

Anyone disagree???

 

[knucklebuster]

I agree. My grandmother used to talk about crabbing in months with an R being better. When I would bring home crabs in july and august with super hard shells, she was always surprised.
I've also caught crabs in January that were soft and light, but were huge in size.