San Juans shellfishing

[Chester]

I'd like to throw a crab pot over the side and possibly harvest a few oysters while staying at state parks in the San Juans. Any ideas which parks would be good candidates?

[starcrafttom]

anywhere in the san juans as long as its 30 to 100 ft deep. flat bottom and on sand or grass. if its steep or rocky you will end up with red rocks, which i like to eat. they are sweeter tasting. you need to weight down your pots and be careful of currents that can drag off your pots. also use 25% more rope then depth. 100 ft I use 125 of line. lead core or poly with a line weight to keep the line down. and remember to mark you pots right. name address and phone. I like the small shallow bay at the end of the run way on north blakely. In front of the bouy at the entrance to fishermans in a 100 ft. try to time it on the slack tides. hour before until a hour after. what type of pots are you useing??

[Chester]

Due to space limitations (dog, dinghy, folding bikes ect.) I will take a cheap collapsible pot with 100'.of leaded line.

[Chester]

Due to space limitations (dog, dinghy, folding bikes ect.) I will take a cheap collapsible pot with 100'.of leaded line.

[starcrafttom]

because of currents in the islands I would weight the pot with some lead or rebar. also add weight to the doors. the current will hold the doors open when the tide is running and the crab walk out. use two or three floats. with 100 ft stick to 75 ft or less on your sets.

[Doryman]

Good discussion, thanks for starting it.

Tom, how do you weight the doors? First I have heard of this technique.

The Department of Health advises against eating shellfish from urban areas. How do you interpret that for an area like Anacortes?

And who eats crab guts anyway?

Warren

[Chester]

Warren, I was told 3-4 ounces of lead fishing wire wrapped around the bottom of the doors will keep them from opening in the current. I haven't tried this, heck I haven't even tried crabbing yet.

Who eats crab guts? Prolly the same guy that eats the worm at the bottom of the bottle. Well, maybe not. I was drunk when I got to the bottom of the bottle...

Steve

[starcrafttom]

lead wire or lead rubber core weights. the rubber core are made to attach to fishing line and if you remover the rubber it will fit over the wire used on the doors. or just zip tie some on.

I never listen to the "dont eat fish from so and so" because they screwed up the science to get the results they want. When they first tested fish for lead and other junk to use as a guide to set safe consumption levels they only used the parts of the fish you would eat. You know the flesh. When those numbers where not high enough to stop people from eating flesh groups like PETA and the Sierra club forced the government to change the test to use the whole fish. guts scales bones liver the whole thing. this of course caused the numbers to go up and gave these organization the ability to complain that the pollution was increasing and you should not eat flesh anyhow. Its a scare campaign using bad science.

[Anita Marie]

Bad science is one thing, bad clams/oysters is another. Shellfish warning

[Doryman]

[starcrafttom]

oh i believe the shell fish warnings not auguring with that. i was talking about the consumption guide lines for fish and crab. You know don't eat x number of fish in a month., that sort of thing. I want to make it clear to anyone eating clams and oyster that they should check the online warnings about which beaches are good and which are bad. that's a whole different thing.