I'm No Sig Hansen

Today we kinda took it easy, then again the past 7 days have all been kinda easy. LOL.  Seriously now, today we decided to role play and I decided to be like the famous Sig Hansen and try my hand at crab fishing but kayak style. So this morning me and my greenhorn (Robyn) headed out to the crab grounds about 700 feet east of Bates Beach to drop a string of pots (actually only one) and let them soak for the day. 

Crab pots loaded (see them all??) the MV Gecko ready to head out to the crab grounds.

After the work was done we then paddled north and played in the shallow rock gardens hand picking the many under size Dungeness crabs for identification purposes and then releasing them. WOW if there are that many small ones in close to shore there must me be bigger ones on the crab grounds.

So after a good soak of 8 hours and baited with raw chicken thighs it was time to put the crew (me) back to work and haul the pot. The greenhorn stood by doing nothin (like on the show) but she did manage to take on the role of camera person to capture the images for an up coming episode of "The Hardest Catch".

Hauling the pot up it felt like it was loaded with big keepers and I eagerly waited for it to come over the rail and onto deck to begin the sorting process. Did I say how nice of an evening paddle it was??

Just like on the Northwestern, not all pots are bonanza's and ours today was evidence of that. We did manage to catch a sun star so I guess it wasn't like getting skunked in some respect. LOL  So just like the big boys, we set the pot again but we'll let her soak for 24 hours and see what we might have tomorrow night.

The rest of the late evening we paddled south of our home base and played with the seals a bit or simply just  let the incoming tide push us along. There wasn't a breath of wind tonight and it was amazing to listen to the sounds of evening paddle around us. We watched two bald eagles play desperately trying to clutch each other's talons in mid air and when they gave up one glided over us and all we could hear was the air rushing over its wings. Evening paddles are such a great way to end the day.

AM paddle to the north and PM paddle to the south.