I Catch my Dinner on the Oregon Coast Tee-Shirt

If you want to have your Crab for dinner, we will show how clean and cook any Crab you catch for $2.50/Crab.

Anyone wearing the Crab Dinner Club Tee Shirt when renting or purchasing Crabbing equipment will receive 20% off as long as they are wearing the shirt.

The following video ….. Use the Crab Max©, Crab Mini©, or Crab Trapper© from the shore with a Hand-Line.

• Crab Traps can be picked-up 8 AM – Dark with reservations. The office reservation staff is available to ask questions from noon – 10 PM.
• Rent a Set of three (3) Crab Traps, a bucket, and a crab gauge @$50/set with reservation are made on-line.  Reservations are No Deposit or Obligation On-Line at CLICK HERE Reservations are processed after 9 PM.  If you make a reservation for today, make the on-line reservation, then call 541-765-2109 to ensure your reservation is processed today.
• PURCHASE CLICK HERE
• Crab License … must-have.  They can be purchased on-line www crablicense.com or Lincoln City @ Bi-Mart or Newport @ Fred Meyers
• Crab Bait not provided … we recommend you buy chicken for bait, seals do not like chicken, but crab do.

Customer Service …. noon – 10 pm Office 541-765-2109

New to Crabbing? …. Free Weekly Crab Clinic … CHICK HERE

Private Crab Clinic … CLICK HERE … Available by Appointment 7 days a week & Crab Cooking

The Crab Mentor will show you his favorite Crab location that does not require a dock, pier, or dock. He will spend 30 minutes showing you how to catch Crab, catch Crab, explain the Oregon Crab laws and everything about Crabbing for $25.    No limit on number in group.

Starting in June FREE weekly Crab Clinic will be offered,

Call 541-765-2109 for an appointment.  Your traps, rental traps, or you can purchase the traps from the mentor; it is all the same to the Guide.

Where can you Cook Crab?  …. CLICK HERE … We help you fix your dinner

We provide the kitchen equipment to cook Crab and show you how to clean & cook the Crab…. ready to eat…. $2.50/crab

Crab Traps for Rent … Pickup/Drop off Hours 8 am – Dark

Reservation staff hours noon – 10 PM … 541-765-2109

One (1) Crab License is required for every 3 traps if you are 12 or older

Oregon Crab License = $10 ……………….. Out of State 3 day Crab License = $19

Crab Trapper Rental

24 hour Rental Crap Trap Package …. Mix or Match

Deposit = Credit/Debt Card/Cash
Rent/Day = $50
Three (3) Crab Traps
One (1) Crab Bucket & Crab Gauge
Bait, License or Gloves not provided

Danielson Crab Trap….. is a “SOAKER” type of Crab Trap. Meaning you pull the trap after it has soaked for an hour or so.  It is 2 ft by 2 ft by 1 ft.  Danielson works by using the Crab’s instincts to trap itself. It lures the Crab with bait bag into the large cage through strategically placed openings that they can enter, but cannot escape.

Ring Crab Trap …. The concept is straightforward: bait the crabs into the ring and “pull” the trap up when you think the crabs are inside of it. The absolute most straightforward crab ring is a two-ring crab net. You should pull the Crab Ring up quickly as the outer ring forms a wall so the Crab cannot escape. You will pull a Crab Ring up every 5 -10 minutes depending on the crab activity.

Crab Trapper … Trap consists of two metal netted 17″ triangular sides. When lying flat, it takes the shape of a square 17″ X 22″. It is the only Crab trap that can be used from the shore as well from a dock, pier or boat. It is the smallest of the three traps.  It is excellent for women and children to use. It can be used from a kayak, Crab-Cat, or boat with limited space.

According to the experts, one needs to understand how Crab finds food and appeal to their sense of smell.   Experts believe that crabs have an excellent sense of smell – this is somewhat true, but not in this sense, you might think.

Crabs don’t smell through any organ-like a nose but instead use microscopic “smelling” organisms.  Therefore, anything that has a strong smell can attract a whole host of these creatures. They will go after anything that comes into their path.  Furthermore, crabs will use their claws to dig or scratch up food from the seafloor’s bottom.  

Crabs rely on their sense of smell to find food. Crabs have chemoreceptors that allow them to detect chemicals in the water that are released by their prey. These chemoreceptors are on a crab’s antennae. These are long, segmented appendages near the Crab’s eyes that have both chemoreceptors and allow them to feel their surroundings.

Crabs also have antennules, shorter antenna-like appendages near the antennas that allow them to sense their environment. A crab can “taste” using hairs on its mouthparts, pincers, and even its feet.  Long story short? The stinker and smeller the bait, the better.

Foods that are natural to crabs seem to do better, such as fish carcasses, squid, clams, and the like. Natural baits also have a downside in that seals seem to love them as much as the Crab and Seals tear-up Crab Traps.

With a Smell Bait Bag with chicken, Crab can eat from the bag, but they have to pinch through the mesh to get to the chicken. Along with Smell Bait Bag’s side is a chicken spike with raw chicken and no bait bag protecting it.

We inject chicken with Pro-Cure Crab Attractant Bait Oil before it is placed in the Smell Bait Bag. The smell of the Pro-Cure attracts Crab but eat the chicken from the chicken spike. The scent will last longer and keep attracting Crab long after the chicken on the spike was consumed.

The Crab will eat two (2) raw dark meat (drumsticks or thighs) from the Chicken Spike per hour per trap

The users of Pro-Cure say this

“Gain a 40% increase in catching crabs. I have tried other stuff, and this the strongest smelly scent that lasts longer. A half a gallon will last year a whole season for Dungeness crabbing. You do not need much to mix with your bait. Pair Pro-Cure with chicken. It is a Dungeness slayer.”

” Catching Crab has a lot of factors, and if you want to maximize your chances, you should probably use this.”

“Please don’t tell the guys crabbing on the pier I go to about this product.”

Crab Trapper

CLICK HERE for 24 hour online for Rental or Purchase Crab Traps

Gloves if you are going to handle the Crab

The Crab Trapper can be used from any of the three (3) locations… Lincoln City (Historic Taft), Depoe Bay or Newport

Crabbing in Depoe Bay …. CLICK HERE

Crabbing in LINCOLN CITY …. CLICK HERE

There are three Docks available in Newport, and they are all free to use. It is less expensive to go crabbing from the pier than it is to crab from a boat. Unfortunately, you will be limited to where you can drop your line or your traps.

HIGH TIDE WARNING

• Crabs live in the ocean with new Crabs introduced into the Bay’s at High Tide.

Crab Traps can be use from Docks, Boats, Crab-Cats, or Shore. Different types of Crab Traps are used at the different locations such as Newport, Depoe Bay, Taft Dock, or Lincoln City’s Siletz Bay. The location can determine what type of Trap to use.

• Crabs live in the ocean with new Crabs introduced into the Siletz Bay at High Tide.
• To insure the best time to catch crab in at Slack Tide, which is the time right after the high tide.

Questions … ask an expert … 541-765-2109 hours – noon – 10 PM

Crabbing Season is open in all these locations year-round.

Folding crab traps are a recent innovation that is changing the face of crabbing from the bank or the shore in Siletz Bay. Although crabbing from a dock is the least expensive way of crabbing, since there are many people crabbing this way, but the number of crabs will fewer than caught from a boat.

Dungeness crab season in Oregon is year round in the bays But Mitch Vance, a shellfish biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, said timing your crabbing trip in the fall is more important to success than figuring out which bay to try. While crab can be caught virtually any month of the year, Most bays will be primed with crabs in the latter part of the calendar year with newly molted crab. Late September through November often produce crab that molted in the summer and are filling up with fresh meat. usually the very best.

How many Crabs you catch depends on the Rain, Tides and Time of day.
The Dungeness crab is a saltwater creature. The more fresh water in the bay. the closer the Crabs are to the ocean. The Bays with their freshwater influence may not be good during the summer as the fall. Beginning in September, crabs will tend to be more “filled out,” meaning there is a higher percentage of quality meat. You can tell meat quality by the condition of the shell. Hard-shelled crabs will contain 20-30 percent meat by weight, compared to soft-shelled crabs which can be as low as 12 percent meat. After heavy rainfall and resulting freshets, crab tends to be less abundant in the bays.

“Slack water” also called “Slack Tide” (the times of peak high or low tide) are the best times to crab.

During swift tidal exchanges crab often bury themselves, but at slack water, more crabs are walking around foraging, since they are being less affected by tidal currents. Slack-tide is a favorite time to harvest Crabs. This is the roughly one-hour time slot on each side of the high and low tides for the day (one hour on each side equals a two-hour time slot).

At this time the tide is moving the slowest, allowing scavengers, like crabs, to roam around and look for food without needing to fight the current. This is only a general rule though, crabs can be caught anytim

Where to find Crabs

Stick to the edge of eelgrass beds. Just look for stems of eelgrass and other debris floating on the water’s surface and drop there. The crabs hang out in the grass so that’s where you should be crabbing.

Eelgrass, specifically native Zostera marina, or common eelgrass, and the exotic Zostera japonica, accidentally introduced on the shells of non-native oysters. A combination of nutrient-rich substrate, pancake-flat shoreline, and The mild winter weather allow the eelgrasses to flourish in the bays.

Each crabber over the age of 12 will need:
Gloves to protect your fingers
Container to take home your live crabs

The Dungeness Crab is a sustainable food source because the females and young males are NOT harvested. This makes it possible that this food source could go on for generations.

The Dungeness crab is named after Dungeness, WA
Dungeness crabs move between Oregon’s bays and the ocean. The bays are open all year to recreational crabbing. Crabs tend to get pushed around with the tides and also tend to settle into channels formed by those tides and river flow. If you can find a place in the river channel, your odds go up. If you want to crab where it’s best for you, such as an enclosed boat basin, your odds go down.

If you are crabbing and are catching at least some crab, then at least you know they are there; if you are getting nothing, likely it’s time to move. Many people crab in areas sheltered from the wind and far off the beaten path – and whining how the crabs are not to be found.

Justin Ainsworth, a shellfish biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, said timing your crabbing trip in the fall is more important to success than figuring out which bay to try. Most bays will be primed with crabs in the latter part of the calendar year, with late September through November usually the very best, with pretty decent crabbing possible from late summer to early winter.

Most commercially caught Dungeness is 4 years old when they are 6 ¼- 7 inches wide across their carapace. Every spring, female Dungeness molt, which attracts male crabs to both mates and protects them while their shells are soft. Males molt in the late summer. Since the males do not have a protector while their shells are soft, they generally bury themselves in the sand, making them more difficult to attract to crab pots. They can be found throughout the sandy and muddy areas in the shallowest parts of bays and rivers.

Other Options
Kayak Touring … Click Here
Wildlife Photogenic Paradise … Click Here
Six (6) or Two (2) Mile Siletz River Drift .. Click Here
Family\Group Touring …. Click Here
Salmon Fishing … Click Here
Crab & Fishing Package … Click Here
Crabbing … Click Here

Free Online Crab Clinic … Click Here

For more information

Customer Serice Hours …. noon – 10 pm … Everyday … 541-765-2109 

• Lincoln City, OR   97267
• 541-765-2109
• info@siletzrentals.com