11/22/11– The weather forecast scared off most of my customers today. But I’m here to tell you, they missed a great trip. We left after 7 and hit the dock at 9:30. The crabs seem to be getting bigger and more of them. I set these pots yesterday just 24 hours ago and they yielded almost 17 crabs per pot. The pot in the picture was just one of the pots with over 20 keepers in it. Mya Boartfield from Laytonville is 7 years old and a real trouper. Like everybody aboard the Telstar*, she did her part in capturing limits of crabs. Hopefully the weather will give us one more break and let us get out tomorrow and enjoy another catch before Thanksgiving.  I know what I’m having for Thanksgiving dinner. Fish-On!!

     Capt Randy

11/21/11– We had a few extras show this morning. We left the dock a little after 0700 hrs and arrived at Ten Mile Beach about 40 minutes later. The ocean conditions are very enjoyable. I have 18 pots on the deck and we need to get them in the water and fishing asap. At about 0800 hrs we started checking the pots that I left in the water from two days ago. Some were a bit light cause the starfish were clogging up the pots. But then, towards the end of the 14 pot string, we started scoring. The pot in the picture was our best score with 25 keepers!! Sarah Mitchel from Sabestapol is showing her excitement about it. Great fun! That string yielded an average of 11 crabs per pot. We need a total of 210crabs for limits. By 0930 hrs (after one hour since we put our first pots in the water) we started checking them. We needed about 60 crabs or so. They were looking good! Lots of crabs and big too. About the 5th pot into a 10 pot string, we hit the mother lode! 16 keepers in one pot on a 1 hour soak. SCORE!! That’s a record for that short of a soak. That did it. Limits for 21 anglers aboard the F/V Telstar* and back to the dock at 1030 hrs. Fish-On!!

     Capt Randy

Telstar* departed a little behind schedule today. I waited for some anglers that I thought were coming but after 15 minutes or so, I decided it’s time to head for the crab grounds. It’s about a 15 ft. swell today, but it’s not raining and the winds are calm. So off we go up north. I have 15 pots in the water and I am going to throw another 10 in just in case. After pulling the 15 pots already soaking we only needed 10 more to make limits. The swell was supposed to subside today, but I think it’s getting bigger so I am going to bring the 10 in that I dropped on the way out. We scored our last 10 crabs to make a grand total of 140 crabs and threw back another 20 to 30 nice keepers. Food for everyone!!! Fish-on!

Pic; Ruby and Sal Flores (left) and Max and Cindy Root from Yuba City are showing off the hot pot of the day. 24 big crabs. A person could get used to this real easy! Enjoy guys and thanks for coming.

Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better! Out and back before the wind started blowing. Limits for 25 anglers in about 2 hours. We had some empty pots today. But that didn’t slow us down. We ran a total of 26 pots for 250 crabs!! John Lambirth out of Arbuckle brought a great group of people out for some fun in the sun and we got just that. If any of you like crab, I highly recommend getting out on a trip. So far this season I haven’t had to run all of my pots yet. The size and quality of these crabs is some of the best I’ve seen. Crabbing like this doesn’t happen every year. What are you having for dinner? Crabs-On!!

    Capt Randy 

Sorry guys about not getting everyone in the picture. It’s kind of hard to see what’s on these little led screens.

11/10/11– After scoring limits easy on Tuesday for 20 anglers, today was a walk in the park. What a nice day to be on the ocean. The sun was shinning, the winds were calm, the ocean was flat, and the crabs were out in full force! We had a light load today with a total of 6 counting the crew. We cruised up to Ten Mile beach where my crab pots are soaking and decided to run the string in 65 ft of water. We did have a couple of empty pots thanks to the starfish but that didn’t slow us down much. We ran a total of 8 pots for 60 nice crabs. Back at the dock by 9:30 with the pot of boiling water just waiting for something to kill the boil. By 10:30 we were chowing on fresh warm crab. Nothing beats fresh seafood! Fish-On!

    Capt Randy

Pic; On the left is senior deckhand (and my oldest son) Sean. Helping him on the right is Brad Reid from Santa Rosa. This pot produced 16 big crabs and we threw back 4 that were so, so.

Saturday, November 5th, 2011– It looks like it’s going to be another great crab season. I’ve heard alot of talk about the quality of crabs not being so great yet this year. But I’m here to tell you, there was nothing poor about our catch of crabs today. I think we threw back a half a dozen soft crabs or so and that was it. The size was big and their bodies were full of meat. From what I saw today, it is better quality than last year at this time. We left the dock at 5:00 a.m. to go set our pots. At 7:00 we arrived back at the dock and loaded up our patiently awaiting anglers and headed back up to ten mile beach where I set my gear. I’ve got one string in 100 ft and another string of pots in 65 ft.  It was about a 10 ft. swell so I don’t plan on leaving the shallow string in. So we started off running some of the swallow ones first. They were ok, with some yielding 10-12 keepers but out of the first 6 pots I think we averaged 5 or 6 per pot. So I thought maybe the big swell was having a negative effect so I let those pots have some more soak time and I’ll go see how my deep pots are doing. They were full. The pot in the picture was our best one producing 23 nice big crabs. The one just prior to that one scored 20 keepers. I didn’t run all of those so I could stack my shallow gear and not have to throw too many back. We went to stack our shallow gear on the boat and the first pots we ran this morning ended up averaging 12 – 15 crabs per pot!!  Nice! End score was; 27 pots for 220 crabs! Fish-On!

     Capt Randy

The ocean was pretty nice today. The sun was shinning and the winds were calm. A little bit a chop left from the winds the past couple of days. We went out with 5 anglers today looking for some salmon. I put my lines in the water just north of the whistle buoy in 175 feet of water. We trolled all over from 50 ft to 200 ft. between the buoy and Cleone. We ended up with just one fish. We caught it within the last five minutes of the trip. We were off Virgin Crk (4 miles north) in 130 ft of water. Larry Deakyne out of Cool Ca. was the fortunate fisherman today. In front of him in the picture is Noah RosaMendoza from Oakley Ca. Noah had some action but the two salmon he had on were just undersize. He also caught 2 nice rockfish (which we had to throw them back), and a starfish. With these small fish and the amount of bait I am seeing, there is a chance we may still have some good fishing before it’s over. Earlier in the week I fished for salmon once (with no success), and we went looking for some Humboldt Squid. For the squid we fished about 10 miles Northwest and made two drifts but no takers. Then we decided to go look for some Albacore. We found nice water temp, and lots of birds and bait, but again no takers. It was a beautiful day on the water anyways. Fish-On!

     Capt Randy

Saturday September 10th — Went out with a light load today. Forecast is supposed to be calm seas. We cruised up north looking for some good signs of salmon. The bait was pretty much everywhere so I was looking for something to stick out. I didn’t see anything really special so I traveled up towards the mouth of Ten Mile River hoping to pick up (if not salmon) some California halibut. We hooked up on a couple of salmon early and landed one of them. After a while, the south wind started to blow. It picked up to 20 kts pretty steady. I thought maybe we’d pick up our gear and look for something a little bit closer to home. I headed toward pudding crk. In tight there can be a good place for big kings to hang out late in the year. After reaching pudding crk. and getting our gear set in the water, it took no time for the rods to start pumping. It was pretty choppy and hard to stand up and fight a fish. We ended up landing one more and losing several. We gave it about 1/2 hour and decided to let these fish get bigger. We had fun but I sure would have liked it if we would have landed one or two more of them. Tomorrow’s another day. Fish-On!

   Picture; Julie Hawkins from Ione Ca. with bro Fred Vessey (local). Guess what’s for dinner tonight?

9/6/11 – Headed up towards the reef this morning and just north of the buoy it looked too good to pass up. So, we stopped and wet some baits. It didn’t take long for the action to begin. We were fishing in 200 feet of water just over 1/2 mile north of the Noyo River entrance buoy. Unfortunately the action stopped just as quick as it began. By 9:00 we had 5 fish in the box. With only 5 anglers on board, I’m thinking maybe it could be an early day. Nottttt! Anyway, we never stopped trying hard to get more fish. The ocean was calm, however it seemed confused. There were currents going all different directions, different water colors and temps, and variable winds. All said and done, a fish a rod is how we ended up. Local Dennis Barney caught the prize fish at 20 lbs. Runner up was Jacqui Johnson from Philo with a nice king topping the scales at 17 lbs! fish-On!

      Capt Randy