I love fishing, but I also love catching Dungeness crabs along the Oregon Coast. I have always loved being on the water fishing, but when you can add crabbing to a trip to your fishing, that’s the juice!In the last few years on my SmokerCraft Excursion, I have made it my mission to do more fishing and crabbing combination adventures with friends and family. As I continue to learn and become a better salmon fishing angler, I can also make the trip fun as we pitch some crab traps out, wait a few hours, and haul in some pretty have crab traps.One reason I love combination trips is how much information I can learn being on the water. Not only am I out fishing and seeing what’s going on around me, I’m getting more hours on the motor trolling for salmon. In 2023, I have had more than one successful trip bringing a salmon into the boat, then finishing off the day with some crabs. But just being able to fish and crab allows me to learn more. I try new fishing lures, I try different crabbing baits, different crabbing scents, and fish a few different spots along the way. I thirst for knowledge, and being able to do a combo trip helps me become a better angler and better crabber!True mastery takes 10,000 hours, or at least that’s what I read and hear all the time. I believe that mastery comes in the form of consistency. It’s getting on the water as much as you can, prioritizing your time, preparing so you maximize your on the water time, capitalizing on every moment to be fishing and crabbing. The notion of 10k hours to me is all about showing up each time. If you practice bad fishing, you will be really good at fishing bad.As I continue my fishing journal, I will continue to take my friends and family out for fishing and crabbing combination trips. The smiles on their face after we haul in a ton of crabs, and the surprise when we land that big salmon, just makes my day! And when I reflect on each combo adventure, I smile thinking about how much more information I have to be even better the next time out. And I smile until I start to dream about that next fishing rod folding over and that super heavy crab trap.
