October 2022

We packed up and left Winchester Bay. We stopped along the way at a beautiful spot to take Trigger for a walk on the beach.

We wanted to stay at a campground on the Alsea River.  We found a campground with boat rentals for crabbing.  I won’t name the marina, but probably the rudest host person ever: we passed.  We decided to check out another camp spot up the river.  Sketchy didn’t do this place justice.  I’m not up on my street drugs, but I’m pretty sure I could have found all of them at this spot.

Sometimes it just works out, like karma. I drive and Meg looks for a new spot. We ended up at Blackberry Campground (part of the Siuslaw National Forest) in Tidewater. It was beautiful and we were the only ones there besides the campground hosts. Unfortunately, the fishing was not to be, only a couple little trout. Even in the middle of nowhere, there is evidence of people with a big blue plastic bin stuck in the middle of the river just past a deep hole or we would have fished it out.

The next day we arrived at Kelly’s Marina late after traveling from the Alsea.  Kelly’s Marina probably only has 10 camp spots, but they are all facing the water.  Quite frankly for the amenities offered, probably on the expensive side but the view was excellent. Sunsets over the river with views of the marina.

We decided to rent a boat in the morning to do some crabbing and fishing while waiting for the crab pots to soak.  The boat rentals were $120 and including three baited crab rings. As a bonus they cooked your crab which is a great idea when you don’t carry a large pot or outdoor burner.  The rental was only $25 per hour for additional hours.

The little rental boats had tillers. It’s been a long time since either of us have driven a boat this way. We’re quite spoiled with the Yellowfin at home. After some crazy maneuvers we worked it out. Meg drove the boat while I trolled or pulled the traps.

In case people have not crabbed before, you can use rings or traps. Traps safely keep the crab in the trap as you bring it to the surface.  If you use rings, they lay flat on the ocean bottom and are fully open on the top.  The only thing that keeps the crab from escaping is how fast you can pull up the trap.  Based upon water movement and tide-flow, you have to position the boat in such a way where you can pick up the slack rope on the buoy tethered on the surface without disturbing the ring so the larger crab do not flee before the retrieval when the rope is tight enough to quickly lift them from the bottom.  Long story short…  Rings are a PITA and inevitably lose many crabs.  But it’s all we had and we made it work.

I caught four giant salmon like the one below while awaiting the retrieval of the crab rings. 

Although the salmon fishing didn’t work out as well as I hoped, the crabbing made up for it. The salmon hit every troll on a Luhr Jensen Krocodile like this one.

The camp sites at Kelly’s are really close, like reach out your window and touch your neighbors’ awning close. We got to know our neighbors who have a house farther up the Nehalem right on the river. They come down to the coast with their RV and boat just to catch crab. They knew the right spots to drop their pots and had traps rather than rings.  They caught 31 large crab.  As we packed up in the morning, they gave up a bag of crab cooked, cleaned and ready to eat.