RV Fun Trips --- Our Crab Fishing Adventure -- 1998 ---

Our Crab Fishing Adventure
September 1998
Page 6

Thursday 9-17

This morning we were able to get out on the water at a somewhat civilized time of 8AM. We headed for the outer bay in dense fog. Tom was having trouble seeing with fog condensing on his glasses.

Tom driving toward a fog bank

Today was much like the previous two days except for the rain showers. It rained twice today while we were out on the water. The showers were short in duration, but the second time it rained was a fairly heavy downpour.

Fishing in the fog before the rain comes

Keep in mind that we were out on the bay in an open boat with no rain gear when it began to rain. It didn’t matter very much though because we were already very damp from our crab fishing activities. In between showers the sun came out for a short time, but most of the time the sky was cloudy. For me it was somewhat of a relief from the sun of the last two days. I was protected from the overhead sun, but the sun reflecting off of the surface of the water baked me.

As you can see, crab fishing is not all hard work

The crabbing was pretty good on this, our last day of crab fishing. Because the tides had shifted to a later time each day, we were only going to get to fish during the midday tide. Tom and I caught our limit at about the time the crabs quite feeding. When we pulled up the last crab pot, it contained only two crabs, but they were both keepers. With those two, we had our limit. We checked with Harry and Wally and found that they were not getting crabs in their traps anymore. So they were ready to call it quits. They did have several critters to add to our catch for the day. So for our final day we all did very well in our harvest of the sea.

Since this would be our last time on the water, we decided to get rid of our remaining bait by throwing it over the side. Our supply of bait included half-eaten turkey parts, rank unused chicken parts, and a few large mackerel. All this was tossed into the bay as it was removed from the traps and bait bucket.

Birds attracted after crab bait is discarded

The process gave us another interesting experience. We were surrounded by seagulls. They were flying so close I could, at times, feel the wind produced by the birds flapping wings.

A seagull up close and personal

There were seagulls everywhere. It was a scene right out of Alfred Hitchcock's movie, "The Birds." I did have the presence of mind to get a picture, but the resulting photos do not impart the true feeling of the cloud of birds around us.

Like a scene from a Hitchcock movie

While we were cleaning the bait out of our traps, the wind began to increase. It seemed to come up all of a sudden. As we were going back to port, the wind was causing whitecaps to form on the bay. I was having a better time than Tom; I was riding with my back to the bow of the boat. When a wave broke across the bow of the boat, I would not feel much of anything, but Tom would get hit in the face by the wind blown spray.

Because of the wind we had a small problem getting our boat in to its slip at the dock. Tom had to take a second run to get the boat in because the wind was blowing hard from our left side. Our entry in to our docking area wasn’t pretty, but we were home safe and sound. Harry’s boat was moored on the other side of the dock, so he had a little bit of a windbreak to reduce the effect of the wind on his boat.

Now it was time to take our haul of crabs to the holding pen. We will have them cooked in the morning before leaving for home. I counted the crabs as they were put in storage; the count for the day was 35 crabs. Many were of "Commercial size." So our final tally for our trip is 119 crabs caught over three full days of crabbing.

With our bounty put in storage, it was now time for us to get cleaned up in preparation for our departure tomorrow. We spent the remainder of the afternoon cleaning the boats and fishing equipment as well as putting nonessentials away.

To clean the boats, we first pulled Harry’s boat out of the water on the boat trailer to take it downtown. The cleaning of the boats took place at a coin operated carwash. It only took five quarters to get Harry’s boat cleaned up. After unloading Harry’s boat in camp, it was time to get the boat that Tom and I used.

A quick clean up of Harry’s boat

I went down to the dock to move the boat over to the launch ramp. Fortunately, there is a breakwater wall across from the launch ramp that protected our boat from most of the effect of the blowing wind. Tom backed the trailer down to retrieve the boat while I positioned the boat to move it up to the trailer.

With the boat on the trailer and out of the water, we were on our way back to the coin operated carwash. Our boat was harder to get clean as it was full of seaweed that had worked its way into every nook and cranny. It took eleven quarters to finally get most of the seaweed out. Tom did a great job of cleaning the boat, while I kept feeding quarters to the carwash.

After getting back to camp, Tom and I put everything away in the boat. We had to make sure all the contents of the boat, including the crab traps and fuel tank, were stored so they would ride without moving around in the boat. The last thing to do was to put the fitted cover on the boat.

While the men were cleaning the boats and preparing them to travel, the women were preparing the evening meal. We had our usual communal feast, which included crab of course. With dinner behind us, the first and only card game of the trip was held in Tom and Nora’s motorhome.

We had to have at least one card game

I retired to our motorhome to get some rest before the drive home. Tomorrow will be another very full day.