We received great news for sport anglers this week from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Dungeness crab season is now open in our area. Rock crab remains closed.

Continued testing show Dungeness crab coming up clean in our area. The determination has been made that Dungeness crab caught south of Point Reyes in Marin County “no longer poses a significant human health risk from high levels of domoic acid,” according to the Office of Environmental Health. Commercial crabbing remains closed until a larger area is available, in order to avoid concentrating commercial Dungeness harvesting in the restrained area.

Because there has been no sport or commercial crabbing this year, the catch rate this week was fairly phenomenal. Longtime local angler Leroy Cross slipped out and back to the Santa Cruz Harbor a couple times last week. Cross says,” There is an abundance of crab in the bay. We did a six-hour soak that easily provided limits for three and an overnight soak that provided enough crab for us to be selective in our limits.” Jack Teresi on the Nancee Leigh soaked his pots for three hours early this week and averaged 11 crab per pot. Again, easy limits for the boat selecting larger male crab only. 180-270 feet of water is the preferred depth for crabbing near Santa Cruz, and we have received good reports from the Soquel Hole area north to the waters off Natural Bridges.

The Santa Cruz Harbor entrance is still shoaled, though a skinny channel is developing along the east jetty. The channel is navigable for small craft at high tide, but Harbor officials do not recommend transiting the harbor mouth until such time as the central channel is fully opened. Boaters who do so are acting at their own risk.

In Monterey, the story is much the same. Private boat reports were not available, but Chris’ Fishing Trips, and Randy’s Sportfishing have ben running “Crab N’ Dab” trips all week. Chris Arcaleo has been posting carbon-copy fishing reports all week that state “Lot's of Sanddab & Limits (150) Dungeness Crab for 15 Anglers on the Check Mate. Lot's of Sanddab & Limits (100) Dungeness Crab for 10 Anglers on the Caroline.” Randy’s Sportfishing is enjoying the same amount of action, limits of crab and a many sanddabs as a client may want to keep.

The story is much the same further north. Captain Jay Yokomizo on the New Huck Finn out of Emeryville has been setting his strings along the southern Marin County coast. On a one to two-day soak in 60-120 feet of water, Yokomizo reports “18-80 crab per pot. 40% are females that we do not keep. We easily select limits of big Dungies for all anglers aboard.”

The weather will improve for the weekend, but there is a significant swell in the marine forecast. Stay safe and double-check the DFW regulations on crabbing.