Powers was fresh from a meeting dealing with the regulations during the emergency deep water rockfish closure set for October 29. "It looks like lingcod will be closed as of October 29, but we'll still have the opportunity to fish for 19 varieties of nearshore rockfish including blacks, blues, coppers, olives and china cod in shallow water 120 feet or less," he explained. "We'll be crabbing from Salmon Creek to Fort Ross in 60 to 180 feet of water and we'll use light hex bars, diamond jigs or double shrimp fly rigs with an 8 ounce weights for the rockfish."

"It sounds like there's a lot of crabs out there right now, so we should have a great opener," revealed Mike Harbarth of New Aggressor Sportfishing in Bodega Bay. "Once the season opens on November 10, we'll be running crab combos every day as long as the weather cooperates."

A typical day fishing with Harbarth will involve heading up to the mouth of the Russian River to bait the crab traps and set them out in 120 feet of water. "We normally put out a total of 60 traps, the maximum allowed," he explained. "Once the traps are set, we'll start rockfishing in 80 to 120 feet of water, probably in the Timber Cove area. We typically catch a nice variety of black and blue rockfish, coppers, china and gopher cod and cabezon. After we limit out on rockfish, it's back to the crab traps to pick up our catch."

Out of the Bay Area, Craig Stone of Emeryville Sportfishing indicated they are anxiously awaiting opening day of crab season. "We'll be running daily trips for dungeness crabs and rockfish," he explained. "The quality of the crabs we found in November and December last year was as good as we've ever seen, so I would plan on booking a trip early in the season."

According to Stone, the C-Gull II and the New Seeker are the two boats that will be running crab combos out of Emeryville. "We'll head out to the crab traps in the morning and load up on crabs until the boat is limited out," he explained. "Then, we'll head out to the Farallons to finish off the day with some shallow water rockfishing. The deep water closure goes into effect on October 29, so we'll be limited to fishing in 120 feet of water or less."

Another popular landing for Bay Area anglers is the Berkeley Marina Sport Center. "We're currently booking trips for the opener. The New Easy Rider and the New Golden Eye will be running daily crab combos once the season opens on November 10," reported Bob Lane. "We'll be targeting crabs in the morning and then fishing for shallow water rockfish along the Marin coast."

Lane also confirmed the predictions of another good year for crab fishermen. "We had consistent limits of crabs all the way through the end of February last year and it looks like we're in for another good year. As long as the weather cooperates, limits of crabs shouldn't be a problem."

Anglers are reminded that special regulations apply when fishing aboard a commercial passenger fishing vessel. The limit of dungeness crabs is six and the minimum size is six inches measured by the shortest distance through the body from edge of shell to edge of shell directly in front of and excluding the points (lateral spines).