July 28th, 2023: Same spot, same pots, same bait but also the debut of my new line management system and one pot rigged with 200' of line (instead of my default 100'). In a rare moment of garage inspired genius, I stole the volleyball line holders from my travel net and they had enough capacity to handle 200' of leaded line!
At 1.5 hours of soaking, I pulled the shallower pot (100' of line) and there was a pretty decent haul of Dungeness but only two ended up hitting all the criteria to be keepers.
The deeper pot (200' of line) was a disaster. For both pots I was so proud of my line holders that I was perfectly wrapping up the line one twist at a time as I raised it from the depths. By the time I got done with the longer rope, there was only one little red rock crab left in the pot (and a perfectly stripped salmon skeleton).
August 17th, 2023: New plan - pull the pot up quickly, make the rope pretty after securing the crabs! This trip was also an opportunity to introduce a friend to the joys of crabbing. Between us we had my two rectangle pots and my old, neglected ring pot. All were baited with recently caught pink salmon carcasses (pink salmon post pending).
We checked the ring pot every 20-30 minutes and gave the other pots about an hour. With it being 1.5 months into the summer crab season, most of the keepers have been found but we did get to keep two Dungeness and a handful of red rocks. Best of all, in the interest of letting my friend test out the viability of his paddle board and what pots he preferred, I didn't have to pull the pots! With my hands freed up, I tried casting a buzz bomb and jigging from the kayak for more salmon but didn't hook into anything.
I didn't know it then but that was the end of an abbreviated crab season. Now I've got to wait for all the crab catch cards to be returned and tallied to find out if there are enough crabs out there to provide a winter season. The kids are always eager to see some more crabs, just as long as they don't have to eat them...