Our new favorite crabbing spot is just south and east of the Yaquina Bay Bridge in Newport, Oregon.

The Public Fishing Pier parking lot is across the street to the Oregon Coast Aquarium entrance – sort of – which shares a parking lot with the Rogue Brewery.

I love taking the boys down here to photograph birds and sea life crab and spend time with their dad.

Sometimes we catch more than red rock crabs or Dungeness.

On this day, it was just Nate and I  while Jon took his 3rd year Oregon state testing. We like these little traps, and as you can see – they catch quite a few at a time.  The rope is attached to fishing line that when pulled pulls the trap shut. You can use a fishing pole to really swing them out there and pull them up quickly. We have found, after a year of use, that a rope tied to a PVC pip works best.  You can use the pipe to help pull it up, cast it out, and stick the pipe in the sand if you are crabbing the river bed.

The crab needs to measure 5 1/4 inches, just a tad bigger than the dollar bill to be legal in Oregon. Red Rocks can be any size, as long as you want to pick and clean the little ones. This dock is almost a half mile long.

Most people crab with the commercial type traps that are circle or square and form a real trap. The crabs come in, but they don’t go out. This allows people to sit and visit, leave for a while, and wander around the bay. The type the boys use, and the collapsible rings need to be checked more often so that the crabs do not wander off.  We use Chicken or Turkey wings or legs. When we use fish parts – the seals like to take them off the hook. Ya loose a lot of traps that way.

I went to pick Jon up and came back with him – he was pretty excited!  The white buildings to the north there, and the boat bays is the US Coast Guard Station.

There was a family there with 4 guys, 3 traps each – and they had caught 77 crabs. They said their family really likes it.  I hope they like pickin’!

Petra School Crabbing Tours will go through the summer. Please give us about 5 minutes notice of when you want to go, and enough time for the 45 minutes to drive there. . . . Oh – and – just know that the best crabbing is still in the Ber months. Septem-Ber, Octo-Ber, Novem-Ber and a little bit still in Decem-Ber.  On the day after a hard rain, when the river fills with fresh water run-off, the crabs go out to find salt-ier water. The brackash water (mixture of salt and fresh) is not a good place to crab.