Crab Snaring on President’s Day 2016

There was certainly a lot of pent-up demand among recreational crabbers over the long President’s Day weekend.  The three-month ban was officially lifted at approximately 5 PM on Friday, February 12th.  Due to high surf advisories predicted through Saturday night along the Northern California coast, the crab snaring probably didn’t begin in earnest until Sunday morning.

I waited an additional day for the swell to subside even further.  I eventually hit a beach near the Presidio Park area of San Francisco with my son at 6:30 AM on Monday, February 15th (on the west side of the Golden Gate Bridge, of course, where it’s legal to catch Dungeness crab).  While we were first in the parking lot, a couple of people appeared out of nowhere in the pre-dawn light quickly pushing a homemade sand cart buggy like Oklahoma Sooners marching forward to make a choice land grab.  While I briefly muttered some discontent to myself for being too slow out of the car, I realized I had three or four favorite spots on this beach and wherever the early birds end up staking their claim, there would still be at least a couple of choice spots left.  Next time I’ll get out of the car immediately after parking and do any quiet reflecting ON the beach after I’ve planted your rods’ sand spikes.

My nine-year-old son’s plan was to fish for perch while I worked two rods for crab snaring.  He’s caught 10 perch at the same location before so he was let down when he couldn’t even scratch up a nibble let alone a fish.

Jerry Back is a television research executive residing in San Francisco, California. Other outdoor interests include fishing for Striped Bass (a.k.a., “stripers”) and anything else he can catch on the beaches of San Francisco. Jerry can be contacted at jerry.back@gmail.com.

Jerry also wrote an article for MyOutdoor Buddy titled "How to Catch Dungeness Crab with Rod and Reel," which can be found here:  http://www.myoutdoorbuddy.com/how-to-tips-full-story.php?how=11109