Shrimpin' on Hood Canal

It's a quarter to ten on a Saturday morning, and I just got a face full of jellyfish. Red, goopy Jell-O-like marine animal slime. Splattered on my cheek. Gross.

But I guess I signed up for this when I agreed to go shrimping for a weekend near the Hamma Hamma tidal flats in Hood Canal. Really, what else did I expect?

Actually, I know exactly what I was expecting: a Forrest Gump-like litany of delicious shrimp-related delicacies. Shrimp Creole. Shrimp cocktail. Shrimp barbecue. What I didn't consider was that shrimp don't just wash up on the shore in a garlic-butter marinade. City slickers. We're so gullible.

Turns out shrimping is really hard work. Here's the scene so far:

We took the ferry to Bremerton, then drove for an hour and a half toward a place called Lilliwaup, which no one has ever heard of. Nearby landmarks included a tavern with a giant plastic hamburger out front and the recently burned-down Hungry Bear Café, its steely-red carcass glinting in the sun. A gas station marquee reading "Welcome Shrimpers" told us we were there.

Down by the beach, where both sky and water glint in shades of metallic gray, past the one-room Hama Hama Seafood Store, we found Lissa James. Her family runs the Hama Hama Oyster Co. She showed me and my rookie friends how to prepare our shrimping equipment.

Shrimpin'!

Where

Today is the final day of the season for shrimping on Hood Canal, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. But other areas around Western Washington offer opportunities to try your hand at shrimping:

Saratoga Passage and Puget Sound: Now through Oct. 15, Fishery Areas 8, 9 and 11 will be open daily for coonstripe and pink shrimp with a 150-foot maximum fishing depth. Spot shrimp must be released immediately. Area 13 (South Puget Sound) is open for all types of shrimp. Area 10, including Seattle/Bremerton and Elliott Bay, is closed.

Strait of Juan de Fuca, east of the Bonilla-Tatoosh boundary : Areas 4, 5 and 6 open daily; closing for spot shrimp when quota is met or Sept. 15, whichever comes first. The coonstripe and pink shrimp season closes Oct. 15. The Discovery Bay Shrimp District is closed for 2007.

San Juan Islands: The northern and central portion of Marine Area 7 (see Fish and Wildlife Web site for boundaries) is open until Oct. 15 for coonstripe and pink shrimp with a 200-foot maximum fishing depth. A small portion of the southern San Juans will reopen for spot shrimp fishing June 20-23.

License required

A shellfishing license is required to catch shrimp. A season license is $10.95 for Washington residents ($8.76 for seniors). Or residents may purchase a one-day license (also good for fishing) for $7, or a two-day license for $10. Purchase licenses at sporting goods stores or online at https://fishhunt.dfw.wa.gov.

More information

Details on shrimping rules, fishery areas and seasons: Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, http://wdfw.wa.gov

Mark Yuasa contributed to this report

For starters, each shrimper gets a shrimping pot — a green metal trap, roughly the size and shape of two dishwasher racks stacked on top of one another. You'll also have 300 feet of rope, a handful of halibut hooks (clips that look like hoagie-sized safety pins) and four cans of tuna-flavored Friskies-brand cat food for bait. (Some people use official prepackaged soggy-beef-jerky-looking "Shrimp Bait," but James assured us "cat food does the trick").

The gist of shrimping is simple: You attach one end of the rope to the shrimp pot and the other end to a buoy. In about 500 feet of water, you puncture a few cans of cat food, place them in the pots, and throw the whole shooting match in the water. Then you wait a couple hours, have a beer and eventually haul in the pots, which by that time are full of sweet, succulent shrimp. Easy enough, right?

The buoy? Oops

By the time shrimping hour rolls around — during the Hood Canal season, you're only allowed to shrimp between 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. — you're raring to go. Lissa's brother, Adam James, who runs the Hama Hama Oyster Co., agrees to schlep the newbies out on his 14-foot yellow boat, which we stuff to the gills: five yellow buoys, 900 feet of rope, six buckets, three hunks of rebar and two dozen cans of cat food.

And that's not to mention a crew of three smiling greenhorns who, despite our enthusiasm, are not exactly able-bodied seamen. Our first excursion onto Hood Canal could have been a scene out of a particularly slap-sticky Three Stooges short:

Adam James kills the motor and instructs us to throw the pots overboard. (Cue the carnival music.) Someone entangles himself in 700 feet of rope, forming a sofa-sized rats' nest; someone else begins to bleed after mishandling a shrimp ("Watch out, they're pokey," he warns); and I throw a shrimping pot overboard without attaching it to a buoy first ("Oh, uh, should I jump in after it?"). What should have taken us five minutes takes just short of an hour.

James looks at our nautical dog and pony show with a sort of incredulous amusement. "Well, I would have trouble imagining that going worse," he says, not unkindly.

From pot to table

By 11 a.m., we take to the Yellow Boat again to retrieve the traps — "to pull the pots," in the shrimpers' lexicon. Again, in theory, pulling pots is pretty simple: An experienced shrimper grabs hold of the buoy, hauls it on board, then pulls the pot up by the rope, hand over hand, as smoothly as possible, so as not to jostle the shrimp from the trap.

What actually happens on our circus boat is notably less smooth. Our winter-withered, desk-dwelling arm muscles ache (the pots are really heavy, though you wouldn't know it, watching James pull and carry on a fluid conversation). Our city-slicking hands slip out of our oversized gardening gloves. And we take jellyfish-splatters to the face.

When we finally hear the tell-tale caclunk-caclunk of the pot hitting the hull of the metal-bottomed boat, I actually squeal with delight. But, upon dragging the pot on board, the spoils are somewhat less than squeal-worthy: We have 14 shrimp. Fourteen. One-four.

I scowl at the bright orange, palm-length curls. Their black ball-bearing eyes mocking me. All that work for 14 lousy shrimps?

"I've seen better," James says, again, not unkindly. Understatement cuts to the bone. And then, "I've seen worse, too." Later, I find out that James' cousin Clara pulled a pot with a single shrimp in it. ("Boo," says Lissa James in response.)

Still, according to the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife, each individual shrimp angler is allowed 80 shrimp. Alas, I'd hoped to be tempted, at least, to smuggle out a cocktail's worth more than my fair share.

Happily, the other greenhorns do much better than I, and we are left, at the end of the day, with enough shrimp to feed the entire cast of Forrest Gump. And that's a lucky thing: There's a birthday party planned and someone has invited all of Lilliwaup — a formidable crowd, actually — to come celebrate.

Sitting around a campfire that night, with a freshly washed, jellyfish-less face, I get up to survey the potluck table. And there it is, my shining dream: Shrimp Creole, shrimp cocktail, shrimp barbecue. It's all there.

I fill my plate, put up my shrimp-weary feet and enjoy the best shrimp cocktail any city slicker ever had.

Haley Edwards: 206-464-2745 or hedwards@seattletimes.com