Crabbing

Huge Dungeness Crab

We have crab pots for our guests to use while fishing in Ketchikan. There are a couple bays near by that produce delicious Dungeness crab. Summer crabbing is typically done in shallow water between 30-60 ft deep, making pot pulling by hand pretty easy. For crab bait we simply use salmon or small halibut carcasses and hang them in the traps. We also have a large crab cooker on the dock so we can boil them up and you can start your feast!

Dungeness Crab Limits In Ketchikan

The non-resident bag limit for Dungeness crab is (3) males per day over 6.5 inches across the back (not including the spines). We have crab sticks in the boats to measure them.

Soft Shell Crab

When measuring your crab and selecting the keepers, we recommend checking for soft shell crab and throwing those back as there wont be much meat in those. Soft shell crab are ones that have recently molted (shed their old shell for a bigger one). Soft crab are easy to spot as the shell will be new and clean and the legs and body will be bright white underneath, not the golden brown color of an older shell. To check for sure simply squeeze the upper part of a leg. If it’s mushy the crab is soft and not worth harvesting, if it is hard the crab has filled out its shell and it will be good eating.