

We loved the opportunity to fish for Dungeness crab while on a family vacation, but most often, we buy our crab online.
Grilled blue crab how to#
We weren't traveling in October, so we weren't going to make it for the annual Dungeness Crab Festival, so we decided to have our own Dungeness Crab Festival.ĬLICK HERE TO BUY DUNGENESS CRAB AND GET 15% OFF AT CHECK OUT How to Cook Dungeness Crab: My husband and I both got licensed for recreational crabbing, so we were allowed to take home five Dungeness crab each as long as they were males and at least six inches across.Īs luck would have it, we caught our crab totals and were able to plan a Dungeness Crab dinner when we returned to our Air Bnb that evening! Our kids had a blast splashing around and helping us to pull up our crabbing nets. All of the kids were excited to take the Ferry to the Island. I was excited to see what life was like on the San Juan Islands. As someone who grew up on Cape Cod and frequently traveled to the Islands off of Cape Cod. The largest of the Islands, San Juan, even has a hospital and a school district. The San Juan Islands are located in Puget Sound off of the coast of North West Washington State. We took our kids Dungeness crab fishing off of San Juan Island. When we were planning a summer vacation to visit family friends in Washington state, we made sure to include an excursion to the San Juan Islands off of Washington State to take our kids fishing for live Dungeness crab. During crabbing seasons, the times, days, and amounts of crab you can catch are regulated by the Department of Fish and Wildlife.Ĭrabbing for live Dungeness crab is an exciting experience. Recreational Dungeness crab fishing in Washington state is allowed during two seasons, summer and winter. Dungeness crab shells average about 6-7 inches across, but they can get as large as 10 inches. If you were to see a picture of Dungeness crab, they would look like a purplish-brown crab with white-tipped claws. Dungeness crab tastes sweeter than blue crab meat.

The crab is named after this area of Washington state.ĭungeness crab is larger than eastern blue crab, and Dungeness crab meat hosts a firmer texture. The Dungeness Spit is an area in Washington State that hosts the largest native population of Dungeness crab. What is Dungeness Crab?ĭungeness crab is native to the waters off of the coast of the northwestern United States. We rented an Air BnB in Friday Harbor, so we hoped to catch enough crab to have our own little Dungeness crab dinner party. Together we all planned a mini getaway to San Juan Island to take the kids crabbing. We were planning to visit my husband's best friend and his two kids. We were taking a family vacation, and we were not going to miss this opportunity to share our love of crabbing with our kids. When planning our most recent trip to the west coast, after realizing how famous Dungeness crab was, we wanted to make sure we fit in a crabbing excursion while on vacation. Since moving to the landlocked Midwest, we've missed our yearly tradition of crabbing. We often brought our dog with us who loved splashing around in the muddy shores of the inlets.
Grilled blue crab full#
Some years we came home with a cooler full of crab, and some years we came back with only a couple for show.

Every September, we would pick a weekend and wake up before the sun came up to make it out during slack tide to catch the blue crab while they are walking around the sandy bottoms foraging for food. Crabbing for blue crab on the east coast was a yearly tradition for my husband and me when we lived there.
