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Tuesday, November 6, 2018

November crabs, rockfish too 11/3/18

Ever since I was a teenager, we have always crabbed somewhere around the 1st week of November, using the opportunity to catch the season's nicest crabs and also to winterize and shut-down our camp at Deal Island.  Now that I am the sole user, and live nearby (one hour), I don't close up camp until (usually) early December, and even the am able to re-open in about 20 minutes.  Nov 8 is my brother's birthday, and often we would use that as a time to catch the year's last crabs.  In recent years I've become more interested in October/November fishing, and for the last 2 years hat has even eliminated my opportunities to crab.  This year, thanks to extreme wind oddly enough, that rare chance presented itself.

Saturday Nov 3 was forecasted to be an extremely windy day, and it did not disappoint.  Far too windy for me to consider launching my center console into Tangier Sound to fish, I knew from history that even though it would be difficult I would still be able to get my jon boat out into the Dames Quarter marsh to catch some crabs.  My fishing buddy Dan joined me on this trip- he has been on the island 2 years but not yet seen what I was going to show him on this day.  We launched in a steady 25-30 mph wind, restricted to using an electric motor, so it was quite a challenge.  We got down past the first dyke just after 1030 and planted the 14.4 ft jon boat in the center of the creek.  No good, wind blew us off our plant, even with two capable anchors out bow and stern.  Next move was to plant the bow in the marsh, which served to steady us but made it difficult for Dan (sitting in the bow) to have access to any handlines, baited with turkey necks.  We finally got the boat positioned in another spot with the wind at our bow, and we were able to hold.  Using 10 handlines, the crabs slowly started to bite.  I knew right away this was going to be special, as we started netting the biggest, prettiest male crabs I have ever caught.  We were even catching these monster crabs simply swimming by on the surface, as the water was flowing back toward the dyke.  This continued until about 1330, at which point we had 3/4 bushel of gorgeous crabs (definitely enough for us to eat), and I was getting tired.  So, we called it a day, took our crabs back to Dan's, steamed the crabs to perfection, and ate them while we watched WVU beat Texas.  All the cras were 6-8", and most greater than 7".







Sunday 11/4, the winds had laid down enough to fish.  TJ would join me for this.  We launched at 0900 in advance of a 1050 high tide.  People were telling me fish were being caught in the Manokin and in Dames Quarter Creek, but I didn't listen.  I staked my effort on South Marsh and later on Little Deal Island, both of which produced fish casting jigs, but all on the small side.  On the way out to South Marsh, it was blowing 15-20 mph and with and easy 3ft chop.  The birds were swarming in the air, but the baitballs, not visible due to the rough waters, seemed to be moving and breaking up as soon as they formed. We tried dropping metal jigs down into them, but we could never get squared up with an active school of rock feeding on the menhaden.  Hours later and on the way back across the Sound and with far calmer waters, the birds had completely disappeared.  With the remainder of my November mostly tied up with travel and hunting, any remaining chances at big fall rockfish might be over.  In total, we put 4 smaller fish in the cooler.  Until next time, at which I should be detailing some deer hunting, this is #dealislandrandy

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