I also fish Strands and if you walk down the path from the free parking lot off of Selva, you'll see a sign near the bottom of the steps that talks about the Refuge rules. I guess Strands is part of the Dana Point Refuge/Reserve. The sign tells you(if you can read through the lovely grafiti)what you can take, anything not named is off limits and that includes "sandcrabs". I just looked on the DFG web page and found under Marine Life Refuges and Egological Reserves the code 10664 that's posted on the sign. Sorry, but from what I've just read the cops were correct about harvesting sandcrabs. I didn't even think about the fact that crabs are off limits, but then again I fish mainly artificials. Hope this helps.