Nothing beats fresh crab for dinner. Crab fishing is not difficult and you don’t even need a boat. I’ve caught hundreds of Dungeness crab fishing off jetties and piers using a cheap rod with homemade crab snares. Shore crabbing is a great way to fish in Washington, Oregon, and California. My focus is on Dungeness crab, but I often catch red rock crab in the same locations if you’re interested in targeting those. To be successful with crab snare fishing, you need the right technique, gear, bait, location, and timing.
How To Catch Dungeness Crab with a Snare
Technique is something that you’ll master with experience, but to get you started, here are a few tips for crab snare fishing:
If fishing from a jetty, cast your snare out away from the jetty 20-50 feet. There are two reasons for this: 1) you don’t want to lose your snare in the jetty rocks and 2) Dungeness crab prefer the sandy bottom areas off the jetty more than the rocky substrate found right at the base of the jetty. I like to find a flat-ish rock closer to the water to cast and retrieve my snares from. If you cast from the very top of the jetty, you’ll almost certainly lose your gear and any crab by the time you drag them up over the rocks. I like to set up just above the point where I would be splashed by waves. A word of warning: jetty rocks can be slippery and treacherous. Don’t take unnecessary risks. Use caution and common sense and wear good gripping shoes.
Don’t let your snares sit for too long. I usually let them sit for 3-10 minutes. If crab aren’t biting within 10 minutes, they’re likely not there. Crab have an incredible sense of “smell” and they will find your bait VERY QUICKLY…we’re talking a matter of a few minutes. They move in schools around the seafloor and you might just need to wait for a different part of the tide or a different day if you’re not getting any takers.
Every single time I reel my snare in, whether I caught a crab or not, I add a fresh piece of bait to the mix already in there. It doesn’t need to be big. Just something to freshen it up. I think this makes a HUGE difference when I see how many crab we catch compared to a lot of other people fishing the same areas.
When you reel your snare in, you want to do a gentle test pull of just a crank or two to see if you have a crab on. If you do have a crab on, he’s likely just sitting on top of your snare at this point. You want to raise your rod to set the snare loops quickly then reel in steadily. If you create slack in your line, the snare loops loosen and you might lose the crab. This usually happens right at the rocks.
CRAB SNARE FISHING
The Gear You Need to Catch Crab Without a Boat
Crab snare fishing gear isn’t terribly expensive, but it does need to be durable. If you’re jetty fishing, you need gear that can take a beating if you knock it on the rocks.
Pure graphite rods are not ideal because scratches (which 100% will happen fishing jetties) often lead to breaks. A fiberglass/graphite combo is more durable.
For reels, I like the low gear ratio ones (4.7:1 or above) because it’s less effort to reel in and less taxing on the reel so hopefully it lasts longer. Its like a car transmission. You wouldn’t drive up a mountain towing a trailer in high gear. You would shift down to a lower gear because you have more torque and won’t burn out your transmission.
I use 4-oz of weight in my snare if the current isn’t very strong but I’ll use 8-oz of weight if the water is moving more like during a big tidal interchange or higher swell.
To attach the crab snare to your main fishing line, I cut a 12-foot leader from 100-lb monofilament. Your line will rub on the rocks if you’re fishing jetties. This heavier mono leader will help prevent loss of your snare and crabs. Tie the mono leader to 50-lb test braid with an FG knot.
DUNGENESS CRAB JETTY FISHING
Crab Snare Fishing Setup Gear List:
- Ugly Stik Bigwater Spinning Rod 12 ft
- Penn Battle III 8000 Spinning Reel
- Homemade Crab Snare: see video below for a cheap DIY crab snare
- Sinker Weights
- 100-lb Monofilament Leader
- 50-lb Braided Fishing Line
One last note on gear: ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS rinse all of your gear in freshwater after every trip. Saltwater will destroy your gear if you let it.
HOW TO MAKE A DIY CRAB SNARE
The Best Bait to Catch Dungeness Crab
I find that using a combination of bait is most effective for successfully catching keeper Dungeness crab. I generally put two types of fish in my crab snares: an oily fish (e.g. herring, mackerel) and a really irresistible tasty mollusk (e.g. razor clams, coast market squid, butter clams, manila clams).
The idea is that the scent pool from the oily fish, the herring or mackerel, disperses in the water and creates a trail for the crab to follow since oil and water don’t mix. Then once the crab find the crab snare, they stick around to eat the tasty bites, the clams or squid. Commercial fishermen have used clams and squid for decades as crab bait. Razor clams seem to be particularly attractive to Dungeness crab. A lot of people use chicken drumsticks as crab bait. However, my personal experience is that I haven’t found this to be a particularly good bait to catch crab with crab snares.
DUNGENESS CRAB FISHING
The Best Spots to Crab Snare Fish in California, Oregon, and Washington
Look for crab snaring opportunities at jetties, piers, and safe rocky outcroppings. Of course, how well these spots do on any particular day really depends on many different environmental factors as well as whether commercial crabbing is open. Here’s a list of places to try:
- California:
- B Street Pier in Crescent City (Del Norte County)
- Del Norte Public Fishing Pier in Humboldt Bay (Humboldt County)
- Humboldt Bay North Jetty (Humboldt County)
- Humboldt Bay South Jetty (Humboldt County)
- Lawson’s Landing Marina Pier in Tomales Bay (Marin County)
- Pacifica Municipal Pier (San Mateo County)
- Pillar Point Harbor Pier in Half Moon Bay (San Mateo County)
- Oregon:
- Abbey Street Pier in Newport (Lincoln County)
- Barview Jetty (Tillamook County)
- Bay Street Pier in Newport (Lincoln County)
- Charleston Marina Complex (Coos County)
- Charleston Visitor Center(Coos County)
- Columbia River South Jetty at Fort Stevens State Park (Clatsop County)
- Newport South Jetty at South Beach State Park (Lincoln County)
- Pier’s End Coast Guard dock in Garibaldi (Tillamook County)
- Port of Newport Public Fishing Pier (between Rogue Brewery and Newport Bay Bridge) (Lincoln County)
- Washington:
- Blaine Public Fishing Pier (a.k.a. Drayton Harbor Park Pier/Port of Bellingham) (Whatcom County)
- Columbia River North Jetty out of Ilwaco (Cape Disappointment State Park) (Pacific County)
- Des Moines Marina Pier (King County)
- Edmonds Fishing Pier (Snohomish County)
- Golden Gardens Park/Shilshole Marina Pier (King County)
- Illahee State Park Pier (Kitsap County)
- Kayak Point County Park Pier (Snohomish County)
- Mukilteo Pier (Snohomish County)
- Ocean Shores North Jetty (Grays Harbor County)
- Tokeland Marina Pier (Pacific County)
- Westport Jetty (Grays Harbor County)
The Best Time to Go Crab Snare Fishing For Dungeness Crab
Timing is crucial when crab snare fishing. Timing refers to both timing in a calendar sense (month, year) as well as timing from an environmental conditions sense (tide cycle, swell, freshwater inputs).
Season
In Washington, where I live, the best months to catch Dungeness crab from shore are October to January. You’ll have much better luck if you get out there before the commercial fleet hits the water. November and December are generally my favorite jetty crabbing months. Dungeness crab molt multiple times each year. You can’t keep soft-shell (recently molted) crab in WA. While you might encounter this any month, you’re more likely to encounter recently molted crab in spring and summer. The goal is to let them grow big enough and wait until they have enough meat in their new shells to be worth harvesting. But if you wait too long, the commercial fleet starts up once their test boats show a high enough % meat weight to total weight including shell.
Environmental Conditions
There definitely isn’t enough information out there about how environmental conditions affect crab fishing, especially from shore. The following is just my personal experience. I’m sure there are plenty of other anecdotal stories out there, so take this all with a grain of salt.
Freshwater Inputs: Most of the areas I fish for crab have some freshwater influence from large rivers as they meet saltwater in estuaries. The crab seem to like the brackish water just fine but when there is too much freshwater input from a huge rain event/flood event, the crab fishing is not good.
Swell: This may not affect the crab much, but it definitely makes it unsafe and ineffective for people to be out fishing on the jetties. If the swell is high, your gear is going to get thrown around a lot. You can add more weight to help mitigate, but expect to get snagged on the rocks at some point with big swell days. I also prefer to not fish big swell because I don’t like being out on the jetty rocks with large waves.
Tide Cycle: Our best crab fishing almost always occurred within the 2 hours before a high tide. After the high tidal exchange, fishing drops off quite a bit for us. It makes sense though. On that incoming time, more saltwater is being brought in to the estuaries, which the crab like. The water velocity is also less on the incoming than the outgoing tide in these river estuaries. You’ve got competing forces kind of cancelling each other out with the river going out and the ocean going in. On the outgoing tide, you’ve got the force of a large river combined with the force of an outgoing tide, creating much more flow going out toward the ocean. If I were a crab, I’d probably hunker down into the sand and wait for the current to be less aggressive when the next incoming high tide happens.
Regulations
Always check your state’s websites for regulations and health warnings before crabbing. These sites are where you will find the most up to date information on fishing seasons and areas, emergency closures, allowed gear, and regulations for keeping crab including size limits and whether you can keep males and/or females. Regulations regularly change, so don’t take what is written here (or anywhere other than your state’s official webpages) as the most up-to-date information. Interpretation of the regulations is up to each angler and relying entirely on what you hear or read is not an excuse if you end up fishing illegally. Just read your pamphlets please.
- California
- California Ocean Sportfishing Regulations: https://wildlife.ca.gov/Fishing/Ocean/Regulations/Sport-Fishing
- Oregon
- ODFW Shellfish Regulations: https://myodfw.com/articles/oregon-shellfish-regulations
- Washington
- Puget Sound: daily limit of 5 Dungeness crab, 6-1/4″ minimum size, males only, hard-shell condition only, Annual Fish Washington License OR Annual Shellfish/Seaweed License + Puget Sound Crab Endorsement (Puget Sound Crab also requires a Catch Record Card)
- Pacific Ocean: daily limit of 6 Dungeness crab, 6″ minimum size, males only, hard-shell condition only, Annual Shellfish/Seaweed License OR Annual Combo Fishing/Shellfish License or Annual Fish Washington License
- Columbia River: daily limit of 12 Dungeness crab, 5-3/4″ minimum size, males only, hard-shell condition only, Annual Shellfish/Seaweed License or Annual Combo Fishing/Shellfish License OR Annual Fish Washington License
- WDFW Crab Seasons and Areas: https://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/shellfishing-regulations/crab
- WDFW Rules Pamphlet: page 140 of the 2020-2021 Sport Fishing Rules
- WA DOH Shellfish Biotoxin Closure Map: https://fortress.wa.gov/doh/biotoxin/biotoxin.html
The Best Crab Recipes
Be sure to check out my YouTube channel to watch these Catch and Cook Crab Recipes being made.
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