Diving for dungeness crabs

[Scubaroo]

Been seeing a lot of dungeness crabs on dives in different places around Monterey/Carmel - can anyone point me to regulations regarding collecting these on scuba in California? Lots of people go lobstering, but I never hear of ayone going crabbing.

 

[GearHead]

You lucky buggers!! The California Department of Fish and Game says on this site, that there's a 10 crab limit. Up here in the PNW, we can only hold 6 per license.

Go get 'em, Ben.

 

[Scubaroo]

Thanks GearHead,

Just found the same regulations at http://www.sfsportfishing.com/fishing_regs.html - looks like 10 is the daily limit, and scuba is permissable. Just need to check again on what areas of Monterey are no-take zones.

Funny how I've never seen anyone taking crabs on scuba before though - considering the popularity of lobster, I would have though that crabs would be a common target species as well. I'd only be interested in taking 4 or so at a time anyway.

thanks

 

[GearHead]

Scubaroo once bubbled...
I'd only be interested in taking 4 or so at a time anyway.

Thanks for rubbing it in! ;-(

I've got a group of friends that love to get together for big crab boils and I get to do the collecting with my buddy. When enough people are invited, we have to have some non-divers wait at the shore with their licenses so that we can stay within our limits and still have plenty of crab for the party.

Based on the current price of shelled crab, we figured out that we had somewhere over $200 worth of Dungeness when all was said and done. Well worth the price of a license, and very tasty I might add. Let me know if you need some recipes.

Rick

 

[lanun]

gearhead - you mean ...


there's more to it than boiling and dunking in tabasko and lime ut:

 

[JustinW]

I can't wait for my dungeness trip in march, we go every year, crab feeds every day

 

[mech]

I'v only seen a few where I dive in Monterey,but I really haven't been looking for them.
What are the better dive sites for them?
Thanks.
mech