Boating During a Pandemic

Cruising waters in Puget Sound and the San Juans are open! It's crowded due to the border closure and many anchorages are packed to capacity. Get to your location early, be patient, and use good anchoring ettiquette!

Update 2/5/21: Unfortunately, we don't expect Canada to open it's doors to U.S. visitors until February 28, 2022. Please be aware that border patrols (RCMP) in Canada and U.S. waters are are monitoring unauthorized access. Additionally, Canadian citizens are reporting U.S. citizens who enter Canada. The excuse that you're just heading to Alaska may not work if you're fueling up or using Canadian beaches.

This is a dynamic situation so please be aware of that any of these websites may not be consistent and can be out-of-date.

• Waggoner Cruising Guide Covid Guidelines
• Marina and Facility Status
• Waggoner Cruising Status
• Campsite/Moorage Status
• Park Status
• Ferry Schedules

Spot Shrimp!

Season opener for Spot Shrimp, June 11, 2020

Sunset at night is a shrimpers delight!

To prepare, I went to the dollar store and picked up dry cat food, canned mackeral, and dry mashed potato flakes. I also purchased some shrimp fuel and soaked the dry cat food overnight. The mashed potatoes create a binder that when mixed together into a paste, will release the goodies to the hungary little critters.

The season is only 4 hours long, so we were off to an early start. We dropped the pots for an hour and let them soak. Since we're on a sailboat, we have no mechanical means of hauling 300ft of sinking line so it's a pretty good workout. We saw other sailboats out there doing the same thing, one with a catch block off their boom. This looked like it would be less work as the tricepts are a lot stronger than the biceps, but also places the line close to the propeller. We chose to haul from the bow and avoid any potential "fun".

The limit is 80 shrimp per person, 4 pots per boat. Once caught, keep them alive in a large bucket best you can. Put them on in ziplock bags, and cover in ice when they start to lose their spunk. Chlorine will make their flesh mushy.

We boiled ours for 3 minutes after snapping off their tails and pulling out the vein that runs down their back. Add a garlic butter dip, bread and salad and you may have just gone to heaven.

Jumbo Shrimp!

Tasty morsels!

Nothing beats the taste of seafood fresh out of the water. In Puget Sound we're blessed with unsurpassed taste treats like Dungeness Crab and Spot Shrimp.

We've never pursued Spot Shrimp before this year, beyond the occasional run to Costco ;-). How hard can it be to pull 300 ft of leaded line up with a weighted trap? It turned out that there were a few hard lessons to learn, but it was well worth the effort, even for the short 3 day season in Admiralty Inlet and Seattle/Bremerton.

We have seen Grey Whales feeding on shrimp so we knew where to set our traps, which is not easy on a sailboat with the wind. On the first drop we ended up with line around the prop. Dang. Sailed into the shallows hoping to drag the pot with us, but the line snapped, losing the trap to the depths. Meanwhile, a pod of Killer Whales passed us by, probably laughing at our foolishness.

Sailing back, we found it extremely difficult to locate the trap, even with a MOB mark set on the GPS. The amount of line out and a tide running combined to place the bouy a long way from where you think it would be. Plus, the depth required sets you a long way off land so triangulation is of little help.

The pros all seem to have electric winch assemblies to pull their pots which is not something I've invested in... yet. So hand pulling was the only solution, which was not all that bad. We're used to this technique with crab.

LESSONS LEARNED

• Look for 300+/- foot depths with a sandy bottom.
• Shrimp travel in schools. Use your depth sounder to locate 'clouds' of shrimp.
• Drifting is problematic, especially on a sailboat. Stay close. Pull pots every hour.

BAIT RECIPE
Go to the dollar store and buy and mix:

• 1 box instant potatoes
• 2 cans dry cat food
• 4 cans Friskies cat food
• 2 cans mackerel
• 1-2 cups liquid fish fertilizer
• Or just use cat foot soaked in vegetable oil as bait, freezing the night before.

CATCH

• Twist their heads off and put their bodies on ice.
• Or put them whole in ziplock bags and keep them alive on ice.
• Don't let them sit directly on ice or in fresh water.

TO KEEP POTS FROM DRIFTING

• In winds, big tides, or on ledges, suggest 150' of extra line
• Add an anchor 30' above pot on a 10' line

RULES

• Limit 80 shrimp per person
• Each harvester must have a separate container for their catch, either in their possession or identified with their name.
• No minimum carapace size.
• Maximum of two shrimp pots per person and no more than four shrimp pots per boat.

Prior to harvesting, check the shellfish rule change free hotline 866-880-5431 or visit the WDFW website.