Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Daytripping: Crabbing on the Oregon Coast

Crab boat flag

We didn't plan many activities during our beach birthday vacation, but one thing we did plan to do was go crabbing. Fresh crabs is a real treat and catching/eating them within a few hours is not to be missed. We arrived early at the Marina Jetty early in the morning when it was foggy and eerie.

Crabbing Dock

Crabbing Boats

After getting all our equipment and a quick run down of the boat, areas to stay away from and how to get unstuck if you end up on a sand bar, this motley crew was ready to catch some crabs!

The Crabbing Crew

On the crabbing boat

Crab Ring

Happy to be driving the boat

If you've never gone boat crabbing, it is so much fun. It is mellow and leisurely due the sandy bottom jetties/bays where crabs live. We would toss out a crab ring and then tool around the jetty for bay-level-views of the sandbar in the calm waters.

Heading out to catch some crabs

Landscape around the jetty

One of our crab rings

Then came the real action, time to pull up those rings, filled with crabs, some may say it was like shooting crabs in a ring!

Reeling it in

After 2 hours we were ready to return to the dock and cook up the crabs we caught. A boat returning when we arrive was overflowing with crabs, but we only manage to catch 1 crab per person (males only!) but that yielded so much crab meat we're kind of glad we didn't catch any more.

Now with as many crabs as we caught, it could have easily taken the same amount of time it took to catch these suckers to pick out all the meat, but we had professionals and this was done in record amount of time.

Happy to be picking crab meat

mmm - crab legs

Actually I think it took longer to make post-crabbing Bloody Marys. Ours had homemade dilly beans, fresh picked crab meat and smoked oysters.

Making Bloody Marys

Bloody Marys all around

Here's to boat crabbing on the Oregon Coast, the most rewarding leisure activity out there!

Bloody Mary Cheers

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