little elk report fri 19th

[b dog]

started crabbing at 8:30 am on an out going tide. 600 ft trot line. stopped at 11;30 am dead low tide. caught 8 jimmies just legal size. 1 sally,and had babies from dime size to 2 in. all over baits most everywhere we moved. started by triton marine and moved line 6 times . even tryed out in canal. today it was not happening for us. may have been tide. hard to accept that crabs are gone when last friday we hammered huge crabs to fill 2 bushels. can crabs disappear this quick? i have heard they can travel up to 25 miles in 24 hr.s. anyway now i got to pick going back to elk sat. for incoming tide and hpoe we just missed em .or try boh. OR head south to tred or wye riv. just when ya think ya got em they fool ya.heck maybe the chester so many good places .

[johnrogers]

Its amazing how quick they get out of there. Time to go south IMO. I am done crabbing for the year. Good luck ifyou go south

[b dog]

YA JOHNRODGERS,i think so. if it was just tide well i would have found more than 8 crabs with all the moves we made. i will prob. hit wye in afternoon and do incoming tide.weather turns cold will be time to find them stripers i hope.you have any luck up here with them ?

[lreops]

Well......Wish I had a really good report to give about my trip out to the "Bo" today, but unfortunately, that is not the case. The morning started off somewhat well, in as much, as we were getting some nice heavy jimmies. The biggest problem was that we were only getting two to three per run on the 1200' line. Was mostly cloudy with the water temp. running 68° to 69° and variable wind. Being that we were in the "Bo", the deepest we could go was 7' to 8'. After about nine runs, we decided to try another spot, which as it turns out, might of not been the best decision. Thought that we would venture out into the Elk for some deeper water, but once there the wind and chop was too much. Went back into the "Bo" and tried to lay the line by Veasy Cove but ended up more in the middle of the river because of the increasing southerly wind. Two runs there with not one single crab we again moved closer to the southern shore. Now about this same time the tide goes to slack and of course there was nothing to be caught. So we wait for the tide to start moving again and now the real heavy clouds start moving in along with the wind getting really gusty. So we packed it all up just as the rain started.

So, the long and short of all this is that we ended up with three dozen of heavy fat boys. Sizes ranged from 6" to 8" with the majority being 7". Only saw one female and only had two throw backs. No light ones at all. The only other note is that again I noticed, as I did earlier in the year, that there were a lot of clawless crabs. Not missing just one, but both. Can't remember any other year when there has been so many missing both claws.

Anyway, got home and put them right on the flame and I must say that even though there weren't that many of them, they sure made up for it in how fat and heavy they were.

[unkle buck]

b dog, we were out on the elk fri. 8:30 to about 1:00 up by range lights with 600' of trot and 25 traps moved everything several times and managed only a light 1/2. most of what we got was in shallow 4' to 7'.
10' did not produce too many crabs on either the trot ot traps.
Do they realy move or just go into the mud??
Anyway great day on river, with 2 freinds from work, saw a couple of eagles fishing and best of all not at work. OH yea the crabs were great as usual!

[lance644]

I was at Easton PT last week and had to work for my bushel. Grade of crab was not as good as up here had been. Chester might be a good bet.
Lance

[b dog]

well i'll agree with that about wind and chop in canal part of elk. and it's good sombody did better than us. it's tough to catch crabs that are not there.ya crabs headed for bay area and future winter nap.time to buy some gas and head south. i read per.bush will be in ST.MICH. today so i'll stay away from that traffic mess.heck i hope they don't close off eastern side of bay cause he's here.ya never know.