Crab Traps for Rent & Purchase … Newport … Depoe Bay … Lincoln City … Siletz Bay

Crabbing is best one hour before and after

• High Tide Times … (Best Crabbing Times = One (1) hour before high tide until one (1) hour after high tide) … CLICK HERE for tables
• Low Tide Times ,,, (Best Crabbing Times = One (1) hour before low tide until one (1) hour after low tide)… CLICK HERE for tables

Crab Bait is not provided … we recommend raw dark meat chicken for bait, seals do not like chicken, but crabs do.

Each crabber will need:
Gloves to protect your fingers
Container to take home your live crabs (We clean and Cook Crabs for $2.50/each)

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.

Crab Trap Rental Options

24 hour Rental Crap Trap Package …. Mix or Match

Deposit = Credit or Debit Card
Rent/24 Hours = $50
Three (3) Crab Traps (Mix and Match)
One (1) Crab Bucket & Crab Gauge
Bait, License, or Gloves not provided

Traps are only available for pick-up at the Siletz River Location off Hwy 101 at the Siletz River.

Three (3) type of traps we rent

The type of Crab caught depends on the kind of bottom of the Bay. Rock Crab like bays with a rocky bottom. Dungeness Crab likes sandy bay bottoms with ell grass. If the Bay has a rocky and sandy bottom; thus, you will catch both Rock and Dungeness Crab.

The Soaker-type Crab Traps are typically used from docks, piers, and boats.

See the following video on how to use the Crab Trapper from the shore.

Crab Traps can be pickup at the Siletz River Location South of Lincoln City CHICK HERE for availability.

RENT One Trap Option Set of (1) Crab Traps, a bucket, and a crab gauge @$30/set With a Club Discount of $24/set. Can make reservations online.  Reservations are No Deposit or Obligation Online at CLICK HERE. Crab Traps can be pick-up 8 AM – Dark with reservations.

PURCHASE One Crab Trapper  CLICK HERE One (1) Crab Trapper, a bucket, and a crab gauge @$40. With Club Discount $38.  The office sales & reservation staff is only available to ask questions and sales from noon – 9 PM… 541-765-2109

Crabbing Information …. noon – 10 pm 541-765-2109

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 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

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

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

Crab 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, since many people are crabbing this way, the number of crabs will be fewer than caught from a boat.

Dungeness crab season in Oregon is year-round in the bays. Still, Mitch Vance, a shellfish biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, said timing your crabbing trip in the fall is more critical to success than figuring out which bay to try.

While Crab can be caught any month of the year, 24 hours/day. Most bays will be primed with crabs in the latter part of the calendar year with newly molted crab. The molted crab does have as much meat as Crab caught in late September through November, but there is no difference in the taste, just less meat.

How many Crabs you catch depends on the Rain, Tides, and Time of day.
The Dungeness crab is a saltwater creature. The fresher water in the ba,y the closer the Crabs are to the ocean. The Bay with its freshwater influence may not be good during the summer a 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.

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 anytime.

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 your trap there. The crabs hang out in the gras,s so that’s where you should be crabbing.

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 yearforo recreational crabbing. Crabs tend to get pushed around with the tides and also managed to settle into channels formed by those tides and river flow. If you can find a place in the river channel, your odds increase. 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 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
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

Reservation Office Hours …. noon – 9 pm … Everyday … 541-765-2109 

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