crab · The Trophy Room
Dungeness Crab
The crown jewel of the Pacific pot — sweet, generous, and the most reliable harvest in the San Juans. A legal Dungeness is a heavy, hand-filling crab with meat that needs nothing but butter. Drop a pot on the right sand flat while you rig for salmon and you're rarely disappointed.
Identifying
- wide, fan-shaped purplish-brown carapace with a serrated front edge, cream underneath
- the last tooth on each side of the shell is the widest — a key to measuring legal width
- white-tipped claws; the whole crab broad and heavy
- measure across the shell in front of the points — undersize and all females go back
Facts
- males only, over the size limit — females and shorts are always released to keep the fishery going
- record every keeper on your catch record card at the boat, before you move
- weight your pot well and read the current — a Dungeness pot in a rip walks away if it's light
