(satellite photo of Netarts bay from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife website with helpful information)
We were off by an hour on the tides due to a reading error on my part. Therefore, we had a nice leisurely paddle on the incoming high tide current.
Here is Grandpa and my 5 year old son, Erik following in the Touring Pirogue. This is a great, easy to build boat for an adult and a young child or two. It is also very user friendly. But then again, the Sabalo is user friendly as well.
I was in the Sabalo with a crab trap on deck eagerly hoping we would have a Dungeness crab feast that evening.
Another couple of photos of the Touring Pirogue after the crab traps were deployed. She handles great in the bay even with the large boat wakes from the power boats going by. The winds were only about 8 mph so there was not much for waves.
Now, remember how I mentioned that nice leisurely paddle on the incoming tide, well the paddle back was quite the workout. Here is a shot heading back to the launch.
Back at the launch and ready to load up and go back to the beach for lunch while the crab pots soak until the low tide in the evening....
Time to harvest all those crabs we thought were going to be in the pots. This time it was an upstream paddle as the tide was still going out. Not to horrible though since the tide was almost at the lowest point.
Well, we pulled both pots. The first was empty, but the second had this little guy. He was a red rock crab and not a Dungeness.
We decided it wasn't worth the trouble to clean one little crab, so we tossed him and the pots back in while we went clamming on the exposed flats. I wore my dry suit because the water was very cold and I had never pulled a crab pot from a kayak before. I thought I may have to sit side saddle and didn't feel like having soaked pants and shoes for the rest of the evening. Or, if I took a spill into the water, I didn't want to cut the evening short.
Upon commencing the clam digging, we were attacked by this vicious little Kelp crab:
A couple of different sunset shots, the first with the sun still up a bit, the second with it almost all the way down.
Well, we went back and pulled the pots again and had several very small crabs that fell out upon reaching the surface. We decided to let them soak overnight. The photo is grainy due to it being fairly dark out.
The next morning, we had to pull them before we had to leave town so we couldn't wait for the low tide. I thought the current was strong the day before, but that was nothing compared to this. The current was so strong that even with 75 feet of rope in 20 feet of water, the buoys were pulled over a foot under water. Its a good thing I had my gaff to get a hold of them or I would not have been able to pull them. Again, no crabs were in the pots.
It turns out, none of the power boats with a lot more traps were very successful either. In retrospect, we would have been ahead of the game by eating the chicken we used for bait, but that would not have been as fun.
This helps keep the crowds to a minimum.