Tillamook Bay Oregon Crabbing

First time out this year on Tillamook bay not so good?

Last weekend I took my family out crabbing on Tillamook bay. In the morning the weather was calm and the water was flat. We where starting on the low tide slack and the tide change was going to be around 6.8 from low to high. One would think these conditions would make for great crabbing?

I baited the traps with a combination of fish and some items that had freezer burnt over the previous year back at home. Some beef rib, old trout, left over turkey,sea bass, and ling cod. First trap I dropped in around 35 ft, the others in 20-25ft. All where located at the front of crab harbor. When we pulled the first string lots of little one where found so we started to move things around. After and hour or two of small crab I took three traps and moved them around the corner out on the jetty side. This is were we started picking up larger crab right on the edge of the channel. The current was running but I felt OK with the amount of water exchanging on this tide. Some days you could loose your trap in just a few moments.

After working this area for about two hours we finally got just five keepers. It was not looking good at all. We finally gave up when the nets started coming up empty? It was like a light switch had been thrown, and in the middle of the tide change. I never seen any thing like it! We finally wrap ed it up and headed on in when the rain started and the water started getting choppy.

Please comment if you have any idea why the crabbing would go from hot (pots full) to pots empty in the middle of a in coming tide?