Originally Posted by
Natural Lefty
Hello Carpangler dude. I have not fished for crab these past few years, but I used to several times per year, mostly in the winter. I do recommend Newport Pier or Balboa Pier for crabbing. Those are the places where we caught crab at the highest rates -- never any lobsters (which are out of season now as you say, anyway), but several types of crab including various rock crab, Sheep Crab (AKA Spider Crab) and Xantu's Swimming Crab, plus Kelp Crab and some kind of white, unidentified crab. Sometimes, we could see crabs walking around on the bottom in the shallows, in the clear water. I did go to Balboa a couple months ago on a nonfishing outing, and there was no action happening there at the time, but I think there have been lots of crabs around there at times.
Yes, snares are illegal south of Point Arguello, so we always use our one hoop net and also fish at the same time. For bait, we would usually chop a few holes in any Jacksmelt or Mackerel that we caught and put it in the net, or alternatively, collect some mussels, crush them, and put them in the bait pouch. Either of those approaches worked well.