PaulNBriannaLynn
New member
We went after some spot shrimp over the weekend with area 7 west is still open daily until September. We left cornet bay around noon saturday, and with the strait surpisingly calm we decided to go around the outside of lopez and through cattle pass. It was our first time going that route and the pass was good fun with alot of tidal rapids and great scenery.
We got up near deer harbor about 1:00 and dropped our 4 pots while hoping for some easy limits. Then took off to Jones island and deer harbor to explore. When we came back to pull our gear, there was nothing there. I had two large floats on each of the 400' length of line, so I could not believe the current had sunk both floats. I was pissed and had a suspicion somebody might have took our pots. We anchored in a cove overnight near deer harbor and made some burgers on the bbq. They normally would have been delicous except I was expecting shrimp dinner!
First thing in the morning it was a very low tide, so we went back to where we set our pots and there they were! The floats were compressed and wrinkly but otherwise fine. At least one of our pots had been picked by another fisherman while we were away. The bait can was put back into the pot, but not inside the bait compartment and the main door was all bent up. Kinda weird, but at least whoever did it had the decency to not steal the pot and just take the shrimp. Im guessing another shrimpers line got tangled with ours and they had to pull two pots at once.
We ended up with two limits of nice big spot shrimp and learned a valuable lesson. The islands require a bit more floatation, then we use in the Puget Sound. I will be adding a large yellow inflatable fender to my current floats and am hoping that does the trick.
We had a very nice calm ride back through cattle pass and deception and burned about 20 gallons for the whole weekend. Its probably cheaper to just go buy shrimp at this point, but whats the fun in that!
We got up near deer harbor about 1:00 and dropped our 4 pots while hoping for some easy limits. Then took off to Jones island and deer harbor to explore. When we came back to pull our gear, there was nothing there. I had two large floats on each of the 400' length of line, so I could not believe the current had sunk both floats. I was pissed and had a suspicion somebody might have took our pots. We anchored in a cove overnight near deer harbor and made some burgers on the bbq. They normally would have been delicous except I was expecting shrimp dinner!
First thing in the morning it was a very low tide, so we went back to where we set our pots and there they were! The floats were compressed and wrinkly but otherwise fine. At least one of our pots had been picked by another fisherman while we were away. The bait can was put back into the pot, but not inside the bait compartment and the main door was all bent up. Kinda weird, but at least whoever did it had the decency to not steal the pot and just take the shrimp. Im guessing another shrimpers line got tangled with ours and they had to pull two pots at once.
We ended up with two limits of nice big spot shrimp and learned a valuable lesson. The islands require a bit more floatation, then we use in the Puget Sound. I will be adding a large yellow inflatable fender to my current floats and am hoping that does the trick.
We had a very nice calm ride back through cattle pass and deception and burned about 20 gallons for the whole weekend. Its probably cheaper to just go buy shrimp at this point, but whats the fun in that!
First time we dropped pots off Iceberg Point our floats were pulled under. We now have two inflatable round fenders for that area.