Monterey Bay anglers are excited about the 2016-2017 Dungeness crab season, scheduled to open next week on November 5th. A few regulations must be noted prior to going out and dropping traps.

First, traps cannot be deployed until 12:01am Saturday November 5. As of this year, all traps must be equipped with a “destruct device” also known as “rotten cotton.” Essentially, this is a hole in the crab trap sealed off only by a string that will decompose quickly. In the case of lost or abandoned traps, this allows crab and other organisms to escape the trap if not harvested or returned to the sea by fishermen in the hauling process. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife describes rotten cotton as “a single strand of untreated cotton twine size No. 120 or less that creates an unobstructed opening in the top or upper half of the trap that is at least five inches in diameter when the device material corrodes.” Also, all crab pot buoys now must be clearly marked with the operator’s “Go-ID,” the number assigned by DFW during the licensing process.

Other Dungeness regulations remain the same as last year, DFW informs us. “The daily bag and possession limit for Dungeness crab remains at ten crabs per day with the minimum size limit of 5-3⁄4 inches measured by the shortest distance through the body from the edges of the shell directly in front of and excluding the points (lateral spines).”

A weak storm front will traverse our area over the coming weekend, bringing some rain, south winds and some larger swells up to seven feet. Prior to this weather, fishing remained consistent all along the bay. Rockfish and lingcod catches stayed steady on all the usual reefy areas, with Chris’ Fishing Trips out of Monterey reporting rockfish limits for their clients along with one or two lingcod and one bonus 20-pound halibut this week.

A couple surprise catches underscore the transitional aspect of fishing this time of year. Bayside Marine’s Todd Fraser reported a notable catch by one of his private boater clients on Sunday. “There was a nice 90-pound thresher shark caught at Five-Mile beach today.” We still have a few fingers of warm water close offshore, and anglers continue to look for the elusive bluefin tuna. Skipper Tom Joseph on the Sara Bella slow-trolled live sardines last week on the tuna hunt, coming home with another exotic. “Today we went looking for tuna out of Santa Cruz. Weather was not the best but we gave it a try. We ended the day with our prize fish being a 78-pound Opah. We did mark a few bluefin tuna, but could not get them to bite,” Joseph reported.