Puget Sound Crab season extended into 2020. We also recently crabbed Marine Area 8-2 looking for big winter Dungeness crab.
Great news on the recreational crabbing front as WDFW has approved an extension to Jan 31st, 2020 for Marine Area 8-1 and Marine Area 8-2. Management of the Puget Sound Winter Crab Season has been a mess this year.
First, it closed early because a few buyers of commercial crab failed to report their numbers which allowed the commercial season in Marine Area 8-1 and 8-2 to exceed their quota by 140,000 lbs.
Second, enabling these areas to re-open required raising the quota for everyone, which allowed commercials (just tribal?) to go back at it along with the recreational crabbers.
Finally, we also get this extension into 2020 for the recreational crabbers. With Marine Area 10 opening to Blackmouth on Jan 1st (18 days!), I suppose you could drop some pots off between Whidbey and Camano and then head down to Kingston to pick up Blackmouth. Not a bad situation.
On Monday (12/9/19), we launched out of the 10th Street boat launch to look for some of these winter Dungees.
There was nothing but shorts on Mission Bar, but that still cost us some time to rule out the easy crabbing. We saw some boats head off NW between Whidbey and Camano. We decided to head up to Port Susan instead, hoping to also find some squid near Kayak Point.
We picked up a few keepers up there, but not worth the fuel at this point. We saw several other trip reports of people striking out on Mission Bar and a few more crab being picked up than what we experienced between Whidbey and Camano.
That’s where I would head if I was doing it again or to take advantage of this extended season. The crabbing was much much better before it closed in October due to the over-harvest, so I’m not sure it’s worth it for a South Sound guy like me to get up there. At least not until I can combine it with a blackmouth opportunity.
WDFW also recently announced that crabbing would be open in parts of Marine Area 12 (Hood Canal). Hoping to get out there the week of Christmas to check it out.