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Outdoors - The CrabHawk brings excitement to crabbing!

Published: Sunday, October 26, 2003

Recreational crabbing is closed in most of Puget Sound right now, which makes it a very good time to investigate a new and intriguing crab-catching device.

Why? Because you can buy it as a Christmas gift and not be tempted to give it to the recipient early or, worse yet, tear open the package and use it yourself.

Succumbing to temptation would probably result in the recipient catching you using it, and he would ask you where you got it, and why you didn't get him one, too. Then he would call you a selfish jerk, which would lead to serious confrontation and the breakup of a 20-year friendship. It would be an ugly scene and one you would not want the kids to see.

But lack of a legal winter crab season in these parts will substitute admirably for a conscience, preserving a valuable fishing buddyship and/or keeping under wraps what should prove to be an entertaining and relatively cheap Christmas surprise. The device is a mini-trap called a "CrabHawk," designed to be cast by rod and reel from boat, pier, or shore. Cast a long, long way from boat, pier, or shore, actually - way out there beyond all the competition from rings and star traps at your feet. Better yet, the trap turns recreational crabbing from a basically boring system - pretty much killing time until you can pull your ring or pot and see if there's anything in it - to a hands-on activity with the excitement and appeal of sport fishing. The CrabHawk is manufactured and sold by the father/son team of Steven and Steve DeMars. Steven DeMars works full-time in "retirement," building the trap at his place near Lincoln City on the Oregon coast, while son Steve helps peddle it from his home in Aberdeen. Steve DeMars works full-time for the Washington Department of Corrections. The elder DeMars purchased the rights to the trap two years ago, when he saw its designer out-crabbing recreationists with more standard gear. In a year and a half, the pair has built and sold somewhere around 5,000 traps. The CrabHawk is a rectangular, stainless-steel wire frame, 14 by 18 inches, covered with rot-resistant netting, spring-loaded and hinged in the middle of the long axis. The spring keeps it lying open and flat on the bottom, with the bait spike (a chicken leg is the suggested bait) standing vertically. When being cast or retrieved, however, weight and tension fold it closed at the hinge, around the bait and, looking hopefully, something like a small star trap.

The great part is that you keep a slight tension on your line, after tossing the trap out to the honey hole, and since the line, rod and reel are connected directly to the bait spike, any crab rattling the spike also twitches your line and rod tip. Voila! Crab on! Reel that critter in and get him into a cheddar melt sandwich, fast. The CrabHawk is a natural for local docks and fishing piers (Cornet Bay? Oh, yes!). It's compact, light weight, and easy to carry, and a chicken leg lasts a long time, since you're not sitting around, waiting, while crabs gnaw away your bait in a ring or pot. Being "attended" gear, the CrabHawk is legal during those parts of the year when unattended traps are banned. It will also work well from the beach, at those areas such as the point near the Mukilteo lighthouse, where the bottom drops off rapidly to deep water.

So it's the greatest thing since Smelly Jelly? Well, yes and no.

The major drawback, and this probably won't stop dedicated crabbers for long, is the equipment needed to cast the device. With bait, it's probably too heavy to be used effectively with, say, light to medium weight steelhead or salmon mooching rods. A good, stiff trolling rod with sensitive tip, loaded with at least 30-pound line, would probably work, but an ideal rig would be a medium-weight surf casting rod of, say, 10 feet, a saltwater spinning reel, and at least 50-pound test braided line. With a setup like that, Steven DeMars says he can get 100 feet easily, and twice that with the wind at his back. The CrabHawk retails for somewhere between $19.95 and $26, depending on the source. The family recently hit the big time, placing the trap in the Cabela's catalog, and it's also available in Washington in GI Joe stores. It can be mail-ordered ($24.95, including shipping and handling) from CrabHawk, P.O. Box 1010, Gleneden Beach, Oregon 97388, or online at www.crabhawk.com. For more information, e-mail the family at crabhawk@centurytel.net.

Herald Columnist
Wayne Kruse
Herald Columnist reporting on fishing and outdoor sports in Snohomish County.

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