Picture in your mind's eye centuries old redwoods, stark sentinels from a time before time, meeting the eternal surge of the foaming pacific. You can feel a refreshing chill as a wisp of breeze and swirls the fog and mist shrouding the western most spires of the coastal mountains high above. In the distance you can hear the hiccupping laugh of a sea lion along with the strange high-pitched shriek of an osprey setting in a hidden perch...

Where is this sliver of paradise? Is it located along the pristine coast of Alaska or possible along the rainforest-clad coastline of British Columbia? No, the scene I've described isn't in Alaska or British Columbia or even in Oregon, it is right here in the Golden State, less than a half day drive from the state capitol in Sacramento or the San Francisco Bay Area.

These were the sights, sounds and thoughts that dominated my mind as I prepared to board the Telstar in Fort Bragg's picturesque Noyo Harbor on the morning of Saturday November 29 for a day of crabbing along the Mendocino Coast along with my wife Gena and 24 other enthusiastic crabbers.

November 29 was originally slated to be the opening day of sport crabbing along the north coast, but the powers that be decided to throw Fort Bragg area anglers a bone in the form of an early November 1 crab opener. This came as a bright spot in a bleak fishing season that included a salmon fishing closure as well as an early conclusion to rockfish and lingcod fishing.

As we filed onto Captain Randy Thornton's boat the Telstar, we met our crew for the day. Valerie Seal introduced herself to me and laughed, "Be sure to mention in your article that I'm the senior deckhand". Bruce Godderd made up the other half of the deckhand tandem.

After taking on some fuel, we motored out of Noyo at about 8:30. Seeing large swells buffeting the coastline from the window of our room at the Beachcomber Hotel just after daybreak, I'd called Captain Thornton and asked him if the trip was still on.

"We've got a swell, but we are going out and get our crabs anyway," Randy quipped confidently. As a result, I expected to see some monster rollers at the mouth of the harbor and I wasn't disappointed as we eased over about a dozen huge swells before we made it into open water that was significantly calmer.

Later in the day, Thornton told me that the swells we'd encountered at the mouth on the way out were in the 12 to 14 foot range. That's big water to be sure, but with a professional like Thornton at the wheel with 23 years experience running all manner of ocean going vessels under his belt, I didn't feel apprehensive in the least.

2008 has featured tough crabbing all along the California coast, but some of the best action has been taking place in the waters offshore of Fort Bragg. Leading up to our trip Thornton had been producing limits and near limits of crabs for his clients. That's saying a lot since the limit off Fort Bragg is 10 crabs per angler as opposed to the 6 crab limit that is the rule in major ports located to the south.

"On most days we've been getting our clients 10 crabs and on the tough days we've still be able to get them 7 or 8 each," Thornton related about a week before our trip.

As you can imagine, Thornton knows the waters outside Noyo Harbor like the back of his hand. "I've got a few different areas that produce really good crabbing, but my favorite area is off 10 Mile Beach, which is where our 40 pots are located right now," disclosed Thornton.

10 Mile Beach is only a six mile run to the north of the harbor, so it wasn't long before we approached the first string of traps. Valerie acted as deck boss and arranged the passengers into teams that worked together to spot traps, retrieve traps, empty traps, sort crabs, prepare baits and re-bait traps.

"Bait matters," Randy told me. "We've got a great combination working for us now. We are stuffing our bait containers full of squid and we are using black cod heads as hanging baits. Rockfish heads work great too."

"Typically, we like to run through the string once, re-bait the traps, drop them again and then run through them a second time," Valerie said. "Today, we might not get through the string a second time. The swells are building and we've got a few folks on the boat that aren't feeling so hot."

Valerie's prediction was right on the mark. After working hard for several hours and filling several large plastic totes with handsome Dungeness crabs along with a few dozen feisty rock crabs, the passengers and crew opted to call it a day and head for port, where the excitement of cooking and then eating crabs could begin!

Our final score for the day was 174 Dungeness crabs for 26 anglers. That comes to better than 6 and a half crabs each. "If we weren't fighting a 10 foot swell today, we would have gotten limits, but it was still a successful day. Heck just about anyplace else on the coast and we would have had full limits of 6 each," related a smiling Thornton.

As our crabs soaked in Thornton's boiling cauldron, he related to me that he would be offering crabbing trips throughout the winter and well into the month of May.

"I've been crabbing for the past 6 years and I've got a pretty good handle on what I need to do to be successful consistently," said Thornton. "The commercial season opens on December 1 and that will certainly have an impact, but I don't worry about it much. There is a lot of water out there and crabs move around quite a bit."

"On the Telstar we are pretty good at working around the commercial guys and finding pockets of crabs that haven't been hammered," added Thornton. "Heck, if we have some angler interest and calm weather we might even team crabbing with fishing for jumbo Humboldt squid for some real north coast adventure."

If you'd like to book a crabbing or squid fishing trip with Captain Randy Thornton of Telstar Charters, give him a call at (707) 964-8770.