crabbing

I am one to love a crab or two. So in the spirit of the hunt a few years ago I went and bought some rings. I soon came to the opinion that that was to much work. I really like the crab traps or pots as they are called. I have crabbed a few places but lets get real I like to do it the easy way. Yesterday I went to the Nehalem bay and launched my boat at the Jetty Fishery (for $10) and went crabbing. So I took 5 traps and 1 ring as my weapons of choice. Most people seem to use the line pattern, that is they put the traps in a straight line from the ocean into the bay. Yesterday I went with the wall pattern. I went from one side of the bay to the other. I like to start 30 minutes before low tide and have the traps baited and ready to go in the water. I put the first trap 20 yards inland from the red buoy and about 10 yards toward the jetty. The next trap went 20 yards inland and about 10 yards on the opposite side of the buoy. I kept moving over 10 yards for each trap. Next I pulled the boat about 20 yards toward the ocean and anchored up in about 15 feet of water. With the anchor out we just put the ring out the front of the boat and hooked the buoy to the back for ten minutes and just pulled that one. When we were all done placing the traps it was about 5 minutes before low tide. The kids took turns pulling up the ring and it was full many times, but mostly females. After about an hour we went back for the traps, starting with the deepest one first. Would you know that that one just had a few small crabs and the bait was mostly full. As we pulled the traps in shallower water more crabs showed up. Then we moved up the the railroad bridge, placed all the traps in a straight line and went to have crab for lunch. After lunch we picked up the traps and headed for home and a scoop of ice cream on the way. For the day we only got 8 crab, 5 six inchers and 3 seven plus inchers (we weighed on at 2lbs). For the amount of effort it was a fair number but next time I am not going deeper then 20 ft.