Columbia crab report

I’ve always wanted to try crabbing the Columbia on the kayak. I looked for a weak tidal exchange and a break in the wind forecast and gave it a go last Tuesday. Not an ideal time to go with a ton of freshwater pushing out of the tributaries and the Hwy 26/101 exchange shut down but I already had everything loaded and the day scheduled off from work. I had two traps so I set those in 25 FOW. I only had them soaking from about 1-3pm. While I was waiting I casted a snare from the beach, never got a thing in the snare but the bait was being chewed on by something (maybe undersized crab). I pulled the pots twice and ended up with 5 keepers, 4 hard shell and 1 soft. Successful trip but I was hoping for a limit. Took them home and had a great dinner that evening. Hoping to go back with a 3rd trap before the commercials go in but we will see how my schedule plays out.

Hell yeah!! Another successful day on the water, good job! 

Still nice to go out and explore and bring home some crab.   Nice catch.   I have my kayak and gear ready to go out at a moment notice to hit Coos area.   Nice to hear people just commit, and go.

How difficult was the current there?  I've been curious about possibly crabbing that area but always been hesitant just because of the location and currents there...definitely would want to find some soft tides, but even then wasn't sure how hard to deal with it was?

The current wasn’t an issue as far as my pots staying put and maneuvering around in it but I picked a softer tide set and it still got moving pretty good. I also tried to time my trip around deepzoom and what it said the water should be doing at that time. Showed a 1.3-1.5 outgoing around 11am and 0.0 slack at 3:00pm. it was pretty much worthless unless I was reading it wrong. It was slack around noon-ish and pushing out strongest at 3p. Pretty much the opposite of what it said it was going to do.