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Catch and Cook: DELICIOUS Dungeness Crab on the Rocks!!

May 31, 2021
and at the gym again it's been a while since I've been here it doesn't seem like anyone is here today so I have these

crab

traps that I'll use homemade I feel like if you can make your own

crab

traps your chances of

catch

ing crabs are 10 times Better than any store bought trap, especially if you know what layout to make, but it's a long walk, so grab our bucket of charcoal, we have a pot we're going to

cook

. Crab up if we

catch

any but yeah it's a long walk so let's go when you walk to the jetty it always helps to walk on the sand as far as you can so if you go out I'm here at low tide.
catch and cook delicious dungeness crab on the rocks
You can get pretty much halfway to where you want to go and when you finally get to the place where you can't walk any further because it gets too wet, then it's time to climb the

rocks

. right, that's a good place to set up here and one thing I always look for when I'm trying to set up somewhere is to always look for a good place to land the fish or the crab, whatever I'm looking for. There aren't too many

rocks

here and I know I could stand here if I had to and lift those crabs up to a little flat area, so now when it comes to steering the crab you don't really need any fancy equipment or anything like that. that the only thing that matters is that your equipment is strong and look at this old rod that I've had for about five years, you can see the tip, there is no I on the last tip that broke, but it still works fine. for a crab fishing rod and my crab traps when I was making these I forgot to put the elastic band in here to keep the cage closed so I have some hair ties and my girlfriend gave me some clips to hold it on so you know That crab steering just needs some sturdy gear and you can pretty much set up anything, as long as you can put the bait in the water and have that crab trap just sitting in one spot, you're probably going to catch some crab now.
catch and cook delicious dungeness crab on the rocks

More Interesting Facts About,

catch and cook delicious dungeness crab on the rocks...

I'm not going to go into all the technicalities about the best locations, the best time to pump up the rod reel, and everything else I did. I already have a video about that. I think it's called The Complete Guide to Catching Crabs or something like that. This little card. here should be coming up right now, there's a lot of information and everything you need to know about how to increase your chances of catching crabs is in that video, so I'm using squid right now, but my goal is to try to catch some. Sniff and throw them into this one of these traps.
catch and cook delicious dungeness crab on the rocks
I feel like it's one of the secret baits that really works wonders for crabs and I'm really loading this thing up so I can leave a good scent trail in the water. I have a four ounce weight here, sometimes I use the 5 ounce and I like the weight on the outside, especially a pyramid weight, because once it sinks, it sinks like that, the weight gets stuck in the water of that way, so it doesn't move. around and when you have these bows up like this instead of laying them on the ground, I feel like there's a lot more chance of a crab getting caught in them, so let's close this all the way up with the hair tie, take it out, okay?
catch and cook delicious dungeness crab on the rocks
Let's do it now. One tip I can give for casting because I see a lot of people trying to throw these traps and they don't get very far. You have to think of your rod as a spring like a catapult so when you swing when you have your trap or your weight behind you like this you have to give it a bounce and when it bounces that's when you throw it so it bounces so It's like you're using a tool and you let the tool do it. the job for you and now, like that old infomercial says, set it and forget it, so it's good to take it depending on where you are, depending on how fast the crab bite is, about 10 to 15 minutes, that's how long I likes to leave the trap. out there it's 950 right now I'll check this one at 10 o'clock and I also have another rod so now I'm tying a seviche to my braided line and I'm going to show you a little knot it's like the improved clinch knot except this one is like The super improved closing knot, so you do it like you normally would.
You know, five or six wraps in the braid that you put the tag straight through, now normally in the improved locking knot you just put that tag straight back in there, that's how you do it, except you do it once and wrap it around. Reattach it and you can even do it three times and that strengthens the knot no more than the improved closing knot. so let me give it some lube, lift it up and then down and that's like the extra special zipper, no that thing's not going anywhere it's actually been about 15 minutes for this one so let's see if we can achieve it.
Anything here, make sure my brake is on. I'll tighten it all the way. I don't want that brake to slip when you start reeling. First we will tighten the line. Adjust it a little. Pull it just a little. a little to see if there are crabs feeding on it, we put it. I don't think I have anything on this one, no I have a small one, so now the trick is to go slow when you get to this point, all that Dungeness. female crab, but it is small, but I say that when you get to the right point where you are going to land it, many people make the mistake of turning quickly, they panic, but if you do that, then the trap the loops are open, so that you have to keep the reel very slow and take it that slow and bring it up and over it.
It is a female. She can be seen by the shell at the bottom. An apron is not designated right there. It's not the shell. The apron at the bottom. that's the female, that's a good sign, at least at least there's some Dungeness crab in here, although we're back, okay, the headband and the tip clip are fine, let's get this out again. I have one more rod here and let's see. how this one does the same thing make sure the drag is tight oh yeah oh man I had a bump oh I feel like you had a good one missing though it felt too heavy ok this one feels pretty heavy. here well to the little donies a rock crab so far hopefully some mail will start biting right now Plan B I have a bucket full of water I have my ceviche there is a little fish well that's actually not bad because I was hoping to get one of these and the I use as bait so I caught this smell good and I said they are very good baits, really very good crab baits and the good thing about them, look, my God, he was too close, I don't know how he did it.
I won't fall among the rocks, jeez, anyway, I was saying, okay, okay, okay, hey, hey, hey, okay, you know what it's just for that, so what I was saying is these things have the perfect size for the crab trap to cut one. half of it will fit perfectly in the crab trap, so right there, so let's try it. it smelled right there, it's a little too big, in fact, let's see if we can squeeze them in there. He fits perfectly. I feel like this is going to have a lot better luck than matching the squid so let's just look at one way to find out so this is the one that smells like nothing man maybe that's why I haven't seen too many crabs in From your reports, it seems they are coming for Dungeness crab. like it's been slow, a lot of small females, a lot of rock crabs, small males and honestly if I don't catch any keepers or if I don't catch anything big I'd usually like to put it in a video.
I would just delete this footage entirely, but I made a second channel called The Discreet Life of a Fisherman. I know I mentioned it before, but it gives me the opportunity and freedom to post whatever I want on a day like today where I won't necessarily catch something worth making a video in my opinion. I'd still like to make a video out of it because I have the footage, so if you're interested in seeing a trip like this that doesn't go exactly as planned, feel free to do so. subscribe to that second channel, but I'll give it another 30 45 minutes if I don't understand anything.
I'll just go, no, that feels good, that feels really good, this is the last one I'm about to do. definitely leave it to a crab now if it's a keeper, I don't really know, that's huge oh hey, that's the keeper, keeper, keeper, keeper of the big Dungeness crab, that's huge, it's got all its claw, here we go, That's what I'm going to do for me. I was just about to leave - looks like I'm going to make a refund Wow, look at that, I think it's huge, there's a big crab right there, hell yeah, it's literally packing up, so to keep these guys, they gotta measure up five and three quarter inches and this. the guy is over six and a quarter, they need to go from that line to that line over there and that's almost the length of the entire tape measure, so he's a big crab.
I'll put it in my refund bucket again and throw it out. I could finally get my guardian. Well, I'm going to

cook

that crab right here, so I have all my coals. I think I'm going to use all the coals in here and there's plastic in it. out of this bag, put it inside, it's straight, it's just coals and paper. Someone likes that whole stack of paper. There we go, the papers are burned and hopefully transferred to the embers. Okay, yeah, it seems to be going well, so I'm going. let them heat up for 15 minutes and while I'm doing that, I've got my pan here and we're going to fill it with some salt water and that's what I'm going to throw in here and that's what's going to boil the water, so what? as I go?
I'm going to cook this, I'm going to remove the shell which is the head here and I'm going to cook the body and the leg separately. Now if you're going to cook a meal outside like here where you catch it there are still rules and regulations so the minimum size is five and three quarter inches and the way to tell is by the shell so if you cook it don't you can just hit your head, just demolish everything you have to keep it. shell in one whole piece, so there are two ways that I can recommend to remove this and you can kill the crab instantly causing it the least possible suffering and the shell comes out into its mouth right here, here, so all of this goes to come off, including the mouth, so the way you can remove it is grab all the legs and everything and find a rock or a brick or something, grab the legs and just break them and the whole shell will come off. instant death of the crab is like you slow it down, you know, another way, just fold all the legs underneath and then what you want to do is just grab the shell as close to the legs as possible, close to the center, as close as possible of the apron and just tear it apart like if the crab was dead, you have the whole shell here, so if some person from the Department of Fish and Game comes out and says, What did you just eat?, you're going to say, I kept this and This is yours. head, go ahead and measure it and let me be, it is not measured from column to column, but it is measured from just above the column to just above the column, so after taking off the shell you can remove the apron part, That's the end there.
Con, is what they call these the dead man's fingers on the side, his gills where he breathes and then you can split it in half, split it in half like this, once like this, to the other side and there are some gills inside if I don't want to eat that, which I'm not 100% sure about, but I think the Department of Fisheries still says not to eat that just to have the chance of domoic acid, but you can shake it and everything will come out and what you're left with is beautiful meat and where there was the head and the mouth, you can pull it off on both sides as well and if you wanted, if you had a brush or something like that, you can brush all of its claws, you can brush these claws and brush. your paws and brush everything and every little bit the dirt will come off but a little dirt never hurt anyone so it's okay you're clean now ready to go now just waiting for the coals to heat up get some of salt water and put it on.
The coals are good guys, the water is about to boil now, so the two pieces are ready to go. It took about fifteen minutes for those coals here to make this water boil just now. Pretty good for cold and windy weather. Drop those guys in there, okay, let me try. to feed in some of that heat with my soft pan, okay, let's see, set the timer now 20 minutes, 15 minutes, 15 to 20 minutes, okay, you know what I think I'll call it okay, let's empty this water and we'll see. what it looks like it smells like it's already done knowing me I could just bill the crab here how many times have I done that in previous videos with the abalone and fish yeah I'd say it's already done check it out it looks good eh it smells great I bet Anyone else on this pier who smells these coals is also saying, Damn, what's that?
Someone's cooking a barbecue here. Okay, let's let it cool right there and I have to have some kind of sauce so you know, I've got the butter, let it warm up. Here first a little bit oh man let's actually try this without butter first break off a piece so okay so it melts each leg and each claw has this knuckle here and inside the middle of the body that's where there's a ton of meat. so yesyou just separate yourself from where that knuckle normally is, I would eat it like that, but to show you all that meat right there, damn, you know it's so good, oh my god, it's so sweet, it's crazy how a crab like this can It has so much flavor and you don't add any seasoning at all, it's naturally sweet, like what kind of meat is naturally sweet, that's how damn that's good, oh, and then you add a little butter, doesn't it get any better than that? , Hey Yes?
God, it's so much more satisfying after fishing all day and you think you're going to come home like a skunk and the last cast, literally the last cast, you lift it up over something huge and you're like, what could this be? Could it be two crabs? Could it be some seaweed and then there are six and a half? inches Man Dungeness crab all that meat right there look that's good melted butters look at that shit right there oh man you know dip it in the butter oh my god I really don't even need butter honestly these males are always a little bigger than the females, so one of my favorite things to do when I eat crab is to get that knuckle, all that's meat in here look at all that's all meat in there at the end, so instead of just biting into it like that. if you have a little bit of butter or some kind of sauce or whatever, dip it in there, shake off the excess and you don't really need a shell cookie, you don't need a cookie or anything, you can just use your teeth and you should be able to get the shell out. meat in a whole piece oh my goodness look you know these Dungeness crabs are the epitome of the edible crab that is only on one leg.
I got eight of those and I got the inside knuckles and I got the claws, even if you catch crap like this and don't cook it here on the rocks or on the beach, it's still very satisfying to take it home knowing that you caught it yourself and that everything what you need is just the crab and a little bit of butter, I swear, just a little bit of butter and that's the perfect combination for almost any seafood. I don't know why butter goes so well with seafood. A quick add-on. I'm sold out of these t-shirts.
They're all back. stock, so if you want fisherman's life net and this crab season, it runs from the first Saturday in November each year until approximately June 30th if you are south of Mendocino and July 30th if you are north of Mendocino, okay and before it's over. I wanted to talk about the regulations real quick so they changed something this year before you could catch crabs year round because rock crab is open year round you keep 35 of those a day but now they made it so you can't Use crab traps when Dungeness season is closed, so from June to November you can't use crab traps even if you're looking for rock crab.
I guess it's because they don't want you to accidentally catch a Dungeness. Okay, let's see how I can. describe this it's very rich, very sweet, it has a meaty texture like chicken, but what stands out the most is how sweet it is, it's good and you want it to last 15 to 20 minutes for a crab this size, oh my. Oh my gosh, I really don't have anything else to say. I'm speechless having fun here now, besides those knuckle bits, another one of my favorite parts is the claws, if you can break the claws completely off, what you're left with is just this. a little shell right here, but this whole thing on top is meat, something about holding something and then dipping it, this is what I get and this could be that big chunk that was what's holding that meat there, well that's it what you are going to do.

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