Up next in 10
Preparing for Puget Sound Spot Shrimp 2021
26K views
Mar 27, 2023
May 2021 brings us another awesome shrimp opener in Puget Sound and this video is all about trying to prepare you for success while shrimping. We walk through how to find spot shrimp habitat on your charts and talk about running through all your gear and bait to make sure there are no surprises. That's right! We talk about a bunch of killer shrimping spots throughout Puget Sound and the Strait. Good luck out there and I wish you all lots of success, fun and safety this shrimping season! #pugetsound #pnw #spotshrimp #shrimping #pnwadventures #fishing #crabbing
View Video Transcript
0:00
All right, everyone knows there's a shrimp opener coming up and preparing to get everything ready
0:13
for that opener. I want to give you some ideas of how to find the right habitat on your charts
0:19
that spot shrimp can be found in in great abundance. I'm going to look at some stuff
0:24
in Puget Sound to really help us figure that out. Alright, so let's start in the south sound
0:31
I've done a lot of shrimping in the south sound and just one little thing here
0:36
so this is, I'm looking at Vashon Island here in the south, Quartermaster Harbor
0:41
You can see the depth on here is what's showing up as I move this around, right
0:47
You can see that? Okay, so shrimp, they're gonna prefer depths that are 250 feet to 300, sometimes 325, changes throughout the day based on the sunlight level
1:00
They're going to prefer to be on a slope. So I look for shallow areas with that preferred depth going down to deeper areas that are maybe 400, 500 deep
1:10
And that's where I'm going to target them. They are also going to look for places with current that is reduced
1:18
These critters aren't moving around a whole lot when the current's ripping, so they're
1:24
going to prefer places where they've got more time to feed on lower amounts of current
1:31
You can see that in the charts and different places where current is broken up
1:36
One of these is, we're looking at Quartermaster Harbor here. As I'm moving this down, you can see the depth changes from 200, 250, 300, all the way down
1:47
of 500 this this slope right here is a place to target spot shrimp another good spot here
1:54
this is tramp harbor on the northern side uh eastern side of vashon island which actually did
2:00
better last year in terms of the numbers compared to cordmaster harbor but look at this right here i
2:05
like this spot right here where this slope it's just kind of like this indent in the chart
2:10
indicating to me that the current's going to be a little bit broken up it's kind of a hole
2:14
that gives these spot shrimp a little bit of protection. So I'm liking the way that this slope looks right here
2:20
You see it goes down to 300 feet. Another spot on Vashon Island we can talk about is a classic here
2:29
which is Dolphin Point here on the northeast side. And all this water here, these slopes here, they go from 200, 100
2:40
They go down to 270, 300, 325, all this, all this. See this
2:47
All this is gonna be productive, good shrimp, and we caught a ton of shrimp there But last year Bainbridge Island also did really well let take a look at another little harbor area here on Bainbridge Island zoom out a little bit
3:02
here we go so here there's a Blakely Rock right look at this little spot right
3:07
here 270 280 300 you know I'm liking this I'm liking this slope here on the
3:14
south side of side of Bainbridge there's a lot of this along Bainbridge Island
3:19
This ideal slopes here that look like they could only this little spot here this little indent here this little slope 250
3:27
All right 290 300, I don't know I'm liking I'm liking these spots. I haven't done as much shrimping on Baybridge Island
3:34
These are the kind of places that shrimp are gonna like to hang out in here we go. Here's this here's the main slope
3:40
Here's another good little spot right here. Look at this. This little indent right here here goes 250, 300, 400. I'm going to like shrimping there as well. Another place that did really well
3:52
last year is Elliott Bay. Look at this. You go maybe further south in Elliott Bay and there's a
3:58
lot of flat 200, 250. I'm going to ignore that if I'm going to Elliott Bay. Maybe this area here
4:04
this little spot right here. I'm not too familiar with the shipping in Elliott Bay, so you got to
4:09
watch out for that but I like this north side of Elliott Bay where it goes
4:13
drops down like this into the 300s on this nice slope here 250 down to 350
4:19
right there all right we can go to the north sound again lots of spots on
4:25
Bainbridge Island on the north sound tons of people will be out shrimping
4:29
there's some classic spots here as well I'm leaving this off of Richmond Beach
4:34
here. Look at this 250, 300, 350 of these slopes. Perfect ideal spots there and of
4:43
course one of the well-known spots here it's gonna be Browns Bay. Look at
4:48
Browns Bay right here. Nice little protected. Some of these areas north
4:52
sound towards as you get towards possession sound you get these currents
4:55
that counter each other and so on certain currents you can have a lot of
4:59
low low amounts of water moving and and I'm liking these spots for shrimping
5:07
that put a lot shrimp in people's pots here in the north sound possession sound
5:12
area 8182 9 all good spots if you're going to the straight you got to use
5:18
more weight it's gonna be more current and straight and you got to watch that
5:22
some spots if you were going out of John Wayne marina you know a lot of these
5:27
spots here, you gotta watch it. This is big water. We'll make sure you got weather in your favor
5:33
But some of these spots here, look at this. Look at these slopes here, down to 300
5:37
These little drop-offs right here, that'll put shrimp in your pot. These spots right here, these little slopes, look at this
5:44
300 100 down to 350 Good little spots there Dallas Bank if you can get in the middle of the straight Eastern Bank has put some shrimp out for sure Look at this 200 down to 300 on the southeast
6:01
corner right there. That's a spot. There's a lot of spots in the San Juan Islands. There's a lot
6:07
of spots in the straights. There's more openings in those places too, so a lot of places to shrimp
6:13
Yeah, you can just follow everyone where the yellow buoys are learn
6:17
Habitat learn how to stay the charts figure out where the shrimp like to hold and
6:22
Plan your trip around that maybe go out venture out a little bit Beyond where you've been before and see if you can't get those easy limits of spot shrimp tastiest critters
6:33
In Puget Sound, I think just fantastic. Okay, something that's a really good idea to do before
6:38
for opening day is you want to get all your gear out make sure it's in a good working order so
6:45
there's no surprises right you don't want to be getting your gear out tuesday night right before
6:49
the opener and figuring out oh crap this thing's got to get replaced or i'm missing this or
6:53
you know it was like a year ago since you shrink last right so uh so one thing i'm doing in my
6:58
garage here is i'm just laying out all my gear just checking checking it so um can kind of look
7:04
at what what I've got going on with my rig in here right we've got we've got the pot I've got
7:11
a quick link stainless steel and I've got a c-link and my pot harness right just gonna throw my bait
7:19
canister in here that's good to go and I got my coils rope I've been using these awesome garden
7:28
Rose Garden Hose Reels to store two 400 shot, 400 feet shots of rope, and I mount them on my
7:37
Scotty downrigger mounts, and they work great for line management. SMI actually has a coiler
7:45
device you can buy as well, get places like John's Sporting Goods that give you the same
7:51
benefit of line management. You don't have to make it yourself, but it's pretty slick how this works
7:56
So, all right, looking at this, take a look at what we're doing here is just these sealings
8:06
They work great, right? They put them together, you know, you're done
8:12
Take them apart. Pretty simple. All right, now I got this. Pull my 400 feet of rope
8:18
And all right, now let's pretend for a second that we got 400 feet of rope out
8:23
We're on the other end of this. We've dropped it down, and now we're on the other side
8:26
where we're gonna connect this to our buoy system. I got the snap here and I can connect this easily
8:36
to the C-Links on the other side of this line and that is gonna hold really well and it get my gear back no problem I got my buoy stick here yellow buoys part of the requirement I putting something like a flag or something on the other
8:57
end of this because you're going to see dozens of these buoy sticks that look identical and you
9:02
don't want to waste time looking for your stuff. You want to be able to grab it really fast
9:07
All right, there's this, there's the other side, there's this handle, rope handle thing
9:11
part of the buoy stick and I use an insurance buoy which I connect as I'm dropping my stuff over
9:20
and here's my insurance buoy. I like to use the insurance buoy versus just one big float
9:25
because I don't want that float pulling my gear bouncing around on the bottom
9:32
because the flotation is too strong. So I use two different systems here. I've had it happen where
9:39
my buoy stick gets pulled under the only thing is showing this and I don't lose my pot I still get
9:43
it back um that's worked out uh really really well another thing I'll do on the uh the line
9:52
about 10-15 feet uh you know assume that's connected about 10-15 feet up the line as I'm
10:00
dropping it down is I've got this pot anchor pot anchor uh it's gonna help my pot stay in place
10:06
and it's also going to help, it's going to help, it's going to help keep my pot
10:14
this pot anchor is going to help keep my float, this pot anchor is going to help keep my pot
10:25
from getting bounced around from what's happening on the surface. It's an extra form of security
10:31
I like to keep my gear in place, keep it fishing really well. And what I do is I got maybe 10, 15 feet of line with the pot overboard dropping down
10:43
And I got this snap. And as it's going down, I'm just grabbing the line like so
10:52
And bam, I've got my pot anchor attached. And we're in business
10:59
We're fishing. and I just make sure toss this down, expand it, and make sure it doesn't hit the side of my boat
11:08
So it's really helpful to run through all your gear ahead of time. You want to be making your
11:14
bait probably 24 hours in advance, letting it soak, letting the pellet soak. I got my pellets
11:21
my mackerel, and my shrimp oil all going to be mixed together in a yummy, tasty concoction
11:28
that shrimp are not going to be able to refuse. Well, hope you have a successful
11:33
shrimping opener and rest of the shrimp season. Good luck out there. Stay safe
#Fishing