The best meals are often ones you can catch yourself. And the Oregon coast
is home to one of the Northwest's most succulent seafoods: the Dungeness crab.
So we took to the coast and put our sea legs to the test.
On a Friday in early December, we drove toward Rockaway Beach to go crabbing at Kelly's
Brighton Marina on the Nahalem Bay, roughly 100 miles, or about a two hour drive from Portland.
We are headed out to the coast right now and apparently I am going to learn how to go crabbing.
It is December, it is soggy, it is rainy and the high is under 50 degrees today. So I'm not
super optimistic for my crabbing prospects, but we're gonna meet up with an expert who is going
to show me what's up and I think that's going to improve my chances just a little bit here.
What was once an old lumber mill producing spruce for U.S. aircraft during World War I,
is now a vibrant beginner crabbing destination and family-friendly marina that prides itself
on giving newbies like me a great first crabbing experience. We met with Jason Jones,
one of the marina's crabbing experts who lent me some waders and agreed to show us the ropes.
So I have never done this before. You have done this a bunch.
You got it. Give me the lowdown on what we are getting into here. All right,
we're gonna go throw some some crab rings in the water and catch us some Dungeness crab.
We'll hop on one of the boats, we'll head out, I know a few good spots where we can drop some pots
and hopefully catch us some lunch and some dinner today. Love that, I love that— lunch and dinner.
We got high expectations. Gotta set 'em high, gotta set 'em high. That's good, that's good. So
what do you tell newcomers like me before we head out— what's kind of the intro spiel here? You know
the distance you want to drop the pots. We want to go at least 100 feet in between our pots. We
don't want to drop them too close. Generally we like to drop them in a straight line and kind
of find our line, but being that tide's going out today, I think we're going to go ahead and
drop in a few spots see where the sweet spot is, and then we'll run straight lines.
I'm ready if you're ready. I'm good to go. All right, onward. Is there a good crabbing season?
We say any month that ends in 'er.' We took the boat out a ways from the dock and I took
notes as Jason showed me how to throw out the first crab pot. So this whole mechanism would
be referred to as a pot here. Yep yep, this is a pot and the reason we call it a pot, number one,
it's the shape and then there is no top to it. Yep toss her overboard. Then I threw out the next few.
Here we go.
You throw your pot and once you throw about all three, it's been at least 10, almost 15 minutes,
we'll boogie back. So when we get up here to pull that pot, we'll spin the boat around,
that way we're going against the tide and we don't have any slack in our line. When we're pulling,
you want a nice tight pull, that way nothing has an opportunity to try to escape.
And this time we got a tiny female. It's very wide after that first joint there, that lets you know
it's a female. The males will be more straight and won't be as wide in this area here. We don't
eat the females. I mean there's no difference in taste or anything like that, but you want to
repopulate. Especially after commercial crabbing and all the crabbing that we do here in the bay.
Back she goes. Then it came time for my turn.
So we got another female. So we'll just toss her right back in as well.
We kept coming up short with either female crabs or males, not
quite big enough to keep. In accordance with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife,
crabs you can keep must be male and measure five and three quarter inches wide across their back.
This standard helps ensure a healthy population. I kept going with a few more tries.
We got nothing. That's a female, she gets to go back and repopulate.
Same thing, we're about a quarter inch shy or so.
My final pull comes up empty. Even though my last pot was empty, luckily my stomach wouldn't be,
as the marina had plenty of big crabs ready to be cooked. And then drop them right in.
The crab gets to be the star, instead of you know, a bunch of spices and anything else.
All right, I like to start upside down. I put my thumb right in the seam between the top shell and
the bottom half and if I hold that top shell still, all I have to do is just lift the crab
right out of the shell. This is kind of that that crab butter on the inside. And what that
butter is, is this fat that renders down during the cook process. So I'll
just kind of lightly pull along the bottom, those gills kind of pop right off of there.
This little guy right here that's in the shape of a star,
that's the crabs heart. It's a delicious little piece of white meat. Even a little
bit sweeter than the meat in my opinion. All right, here we go.
Good stuff. Spot on. Lunch is served. I'm just like
all in on this right now. I vowed that I was going to take part of it home.
I am not taking any of it home. I am eating everything right now.
And although I can't quite say I caught my lunch, I'd love to test my luck again
and give it another go. Maybe on a 70 degree summer day next time.