Hunting for Coonstripe Shrimp

Our first attempt at shrimping for coonstripe on Sunday was a bust, but fortunately we’re competent crabbers by now and we took home a cooler full of crab. I had recently purchased one shrimp pot, 200 feet of line for it (we use 100 for crabbing), pot weights, and yellow buoys (the designated shrimping color in Washington). I’ll invest in more only if we learn how to be successful.

I was up late Saturday night assembling my new pot, watching videos on how to mix up the stinky bait, and making late night trips to Safeway to purchase some arcane ingredients. This is in addition to the usual prep for a day of crabbing. I probably shouldn’t mix it up in the house… The place reeked of canned mackerel, and my cats went bonkers trying to get some.

The day started out overcast and cool with smooth seas. It ended hot and sunny with blustery seas that were a bit challenging to pull pots in. On the way out we were excited to spot two separate schools of harbor porpoises. We traveled some 40 minutes to our new favorite crabbing spot, dropped the four pots, then went another 10 minutes to drop our lone shrimp pot. After making our first crab pot pulls, we came back for the shrimp with anticipation. Alas, the location was so secret that not even the shrimp knew about it. Disappointed, we went back and forth between checking our crab pots and searching for shrimp far away from Everett, replacing our shrimp bait each time until it was gone.

We’re getting into the time of year when male Dungeness crabs are molting. This means that they have less meat because they haven’t grown into their new shell yet, they are hungrier than usual, and they are illegal to catch. In this state they’re called “soft shell”. We’re getting more experience at identifying them.

As we often do, we stopped in Langley for lunch. The restaurant servers there probably all think we live there by now. While we were in port the wind picked up quite a bit, making our final pull of the day quite bouncy. One small red rock crab disappeared somehow; we found it in the anchor locker and threw the stowaway overboard. The ride home was exciting. We were going downsea, meaning that we would ride up on the backs of all the waves and then suddenly fall down off the front. It’s actually fun once you get used to it.