Dungenator

Julie and Ava puked all night long.  Ava was a super trooper and hardly even complained.  At one point they were both puking at the same time, Julie holding Ava’s hair so it didn’t get doused.

As they tried to recover Skylar and I kept checking the crab pots.  A few more Rock Crab and a few Dungeness we weren’t doing too bad.

As we pulled the last pot of the string, Skylar was looing over letting me know the catch.  “I see some – oh yea there’s a few – wow one is huge!”  As I get the pot to the surface I look over and saw a huge shape – absolutely the largest Dungeness crab I have ever seen!  The problem is, it was not even in the pot!  It was on the bottom of the pot just hanging on by his monster legs.   If I just pull the pot up carefully maybe he’ll stay on, I thought.  No such luck.  As I grab the pot he lets go, slowly drifting toward the ocean floor 150’ below.  I am not letting this thing get away! I said to myself.  I reached down and grabbed the crab with my hand and pulled it to the surface, but he didn’t want to come easy.  Just as he broke the surface I could see him going crazy and I thought for sure my finger was coming off.  I had to let him go.  As he slowly sunk once again even deeper I was determined to give it one more shot.  With my whole arm in the water I quickly grabbed on, yanked him out of the water as fast as I could and threw him in the boat!  My adrenalin was racing and I couldn’t believe what just happened.  A guy in a boat 100’ away yelled over “That was awesome!  The coolest thing I’ve ever seen!  Wish I had a video camera.”

And he was huge!  9.5” and I have the shell to prove it!

With water running out, and flu-infested laundry, we took off at 12:45pm for Fair Harbor in Grapeview.

Traveled 16.69nm