Dungeness Crabbing in Cowichan, BC

Dungeness crab live in Cowichan waters year round, so you have something to work with whenever you launch. The season that matters most runs May through September. By June the spring molt has passed, shells have hardened, and legal-size males have stacked up in the bays through early fall. Late winter and early spring bring a dip, partly because post-molt crab are soft and less worth handling, partly because they slide out into the deeper adjacent channels when cold freshwater runoff pushes down the Cowichan River.

Maple Bay and Burial Islet is the spot covered here, and it fits the pattern that works across Cowichan Bay and Satellite Channel. You want sand and mud bottom in 40 to 100 feet. Baited traps do all the work. Salmon heads hold scent longest, but chicken, fish carcasses and herring all pull crab into the pot, and a mix in the bait cage keeps the trail going through a full soak.

Current decides where your gear ends up. Fish the slack. From dead slack up to about 2 knots you get traps that sit where you drop them and lines that stay near vertical. Push past that and the pot walks, the float drags under, and by roughly 4.5 knots the set is not worth making. Plan your drops for the window either side of high or low water and pull them on the next slack.