With next year’s summer schedule already filling up, Bandon will have to take a backseat for a couple years or more. The boys will graduate high school next June and there are other trips on the table for the summer.
This year the boys invited their good friend Carson to join us. We warned him that it was a “working” trip, pulling crab pots many times. He accepted and did a great job.
The crabbing was slower this year (168 crabs last year and 136 this year) but the quality was still wonderful. We like the “soft shell” crabs better than the hard shell. The meat is much more tender and sweet.
We skipped riding quads last year so this year we made the drive to Winchester Bay and rented quads for everyone. It was a much better place to ride than Hauser. We were able to see the ocean from just about every peak on the dunes, which was a nice bonus.
After riding we drove around and saw a sign that said “TUNA turn left”. We followed the signs and found the boat that was selling fresh caught albacore. They had just returned from catching 175 albacore and was selling them for $3/pound whole. I purchased 15 pounds of filets for canning. Then we stopped to buy a fresh ocean salmon for $10/pound whole. I bought a 13 pound fish and took it home whole so I could filet it myself. Also for canning!
The weather the whole trip was fabulous especially because it was very warm back home. The weather on the ocean was good enough to get out and bottom fish too. When we got out there the water was pretty flat with no wind. We noticed dorsal and caudal fins all around us. The black rock fish were all suspended! We changed to topwater rigs and began hooking and landing fish on topwater plugs. What a treat. Wish we had our fly rods!
Bandon is such a special place. It’s not that far from Chico, easy drive towing a boat, great food there, crabbing, clamming, riding the dunes, surf fishing, ocean fishing, easy to moor the boat the whole time, fantastic ice cream parlor, Tony’s crab shack to cook and clean crabs at a ridiculously cheap price…etc.
The end of our week is always hard to leave Bandon. Knowing that it will be at least 2 years before we return made it even harder.
