I lived in Berkeley the last 6 years and on several occassions met guys from the charter boats out of Emeryville and Berkeley. They always got so excited talking about getting crabs and fishing.

But what I heard from other people is that those trips waste at least three hours of your fishing time, spending at least an hour on the way out to pull up the crab traps, and then an hour on the way back in to check them again. My impression was that this was kind of a sketchy operation, a way for the boats to load up on crabs for themselves while all the paying customers waste their time waiting.

My overall impression of the charter boats out of the East Bay was that they were all sketchy operations. My idea of sport fishing is to get the adreneline pumping. I wasn't impressed at all in these meat trips and thus, not having a boat myself, I stopped ocean fishing for those 6 years that I lived up there. I'm glad to be back in SoCal now!

** tight lines make all my troubles go away **