Crab Potting

As part of our MERE project Lauren and I had to prepare crab pots. Our research is on the dentition of crab claws. We need to catch different species of crabs at different ages.

What we did to prepare the pots was that we put 2 drumsticks into each pot, zip tied the sides of the cages in case if the crabs escape and loaded everything up into the Coot.

Kevin then drove us to Brown island where we deployed them to the bottom of the Puget Sound. Once they touched the bottom, we threw in another 2 feet of rope and tied the rest up and threw in the buoy as well. We will check up on them 24 hours later.

We went to check up on the pots the next day and guess what, there were at least 5 Dungeness Crabs in each pot. We were so excited to have caught something! Once we hauled up all the pots, we then headed back to the dock. We wanted to catch another species, so we set the crab pots up and lowered them under the dock hoping to catch some Red Rock Crabs.

I've never gone crabbing before so this was a great experience for me!

Posted on October 8, 2012 05:00 AM by huangt3