Wednesday, November 11, 2009

November 4.....

Our first King crab trip is behind us and by now, the second one will be as well.
Things went well enough, not as blistering as last year but a steady, solid number coming over the rail. As in the past, come Halloween the fishing peters out to the point of horrible. Most of the boats still fishing (about half the fleet) struggle to find more than 10 per pot, and at that rate it's no longer lucrative and quite maddening to boot! This year the problem can be attributed to any number of things:
  1. minus tides associated with the full moon on November 2nd
  2. a storm that blew through at the same time, stirring up the bottom and creating large waves that tend to jerk on the buoys. This turbulence is transmitted to the pots via the line and can actually bounce the gear around.
  3. any large concentrations of crab have, to some degree, been caught by the fleet

It's good to be finished with King Crab and now we are on to the mighty Bairdi fishery. More on that later,

Capt Monte "mouse"

1 comment:

  1. Good to hear from ya again, Monte! Glad that the RKC are behind ya. You fishin for bairdi to load up your freezer? LOL. Wishing you and da guys luck and a safe trip, hope ya get home soon. Miss ya all.
    ((HUGS))
    Kim

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