Have you ever noticed you can crab the same area year after year but certain spots mere yards apart can perform far better than others?
A big reason behind this is depth.
Dungeness crab congregate in areas that are relatively flat, sandy, and covered with seaweed, predominantly eelgrass. Finding the ideal habitat and placement for your pots can be as easy as checking a depth chart, making your own system, or buying a professional depth finder.
Depth charts are something I have incorporated into my crabbing for years now, when I was a kid on the hood canal, I vividly remember losing more than a few pots due to incorrectly placing my pots out past the drop off, which could go down to 150 feet!
For me, trial and error was my teacher, after a while I could remember the certain places that did better than others, but that was only after crabbing that spot for literally years.
Get a depth chart. Either download one onto your phone or see about buying one here but knowing where the water is deep or shallow can be crucial to finding where the crabs are.
In the Puget Sound, I personally like to crab between 20-80 feet of water, these ranges often sustain the best eelgrass beds, and in general are very easy to get to with my rowboat or kayak, and are lightwork to haul pots in and out of (try crabbing 100+ feet all day by hand).
However, some shallower areas like Birch Bay up north past Bellingham can still yield great crab in 10-20 feet! It all depends on the layout of the body of water and it can take some trial and error, but it definitely doesn’t hurt to know exactly what depth is the best for crab there.
With this in mind you can also easily make your own system for checking how deep it is, my buddy has 10 foot tick marks on one of his lines where he’ll lower it down and can figure out what’s below. This method works well and I’ve used it many times.
Sometimes even on your pot line you can measure out the depth and play it by ear, if you know you have 100 feet of line and you drop with about 40 feet left over its probably about 60 feet deep.
One of the last ways is to buy a professional depth finder. Used by avid fishermen and crabbers they can be extremely useful at finding out what’s below you, I don’t do much fishing anymore, but for crabbing you pretty much just want something that tells you the depth straight up as you move along.
Some great options include:
Portable Fish Finder
This one is more of a standard depth checker, pretty basic but will definitely get the job done.
Garmin Transducer Fishfinder
More of a serious fish finder. This baby will let you know exactly whats beneath you and help you re-target and locate the best spots for crab.
They can save you alot of time and take your crabbing to the next level, but overall not 100% necessary, as I have definitely done many seasons without one.
Anyways, get out there on the water and get those crabs!
Any more questions about gear, crabbing in the puget sound, or even recipes feel free to comment or send me an email!
Enjoy the rest of your season!
– Spencer