Bay Crabbing, Half Day
From $145 / person
Four hours on protected Grays Harbor water. Ten pots, limits most days, and we cook your crab right on the dock before you drive home. The trip we recommend for families.
Trip details
Westport, Washington · Est. 2011
Pull your own pots. Cook your crab on the dock.
Slack Tide Charters runs small, six-guest Dungeness crab and salmon trips out of the Westport marina, skippered by a third-generation Grays Harbor fisherman who knows exactly where the crab crawl.
15Seasons running charters
2,400+Trips out of Westport
6Guests max, every trip
34 ftSeattle-built Delta hull
The short version
A working boat, not a party barge
Curt Hovland crabbed these waters commercially for 14 winters before he started taking guests out in 2011. The Marta Jean is a 1979 Delta, repowered in 2019, and she rides the Grays Harbor bar the way a boat should. You will pull pots, band crab, and run the gaff if you want to. Nobody stands around watching.
Trips leave from Float 8 at the Westport marina, two blocks from the Half Moon Bay viewing tower. Most guests drive out from Olympia, Tacoma, or Seattle and are home by dinner with a cooler full.
Meet Curt & the Marta Jean
Trips
Three ways onto the water
Every rate below is per person and includes bait, gear, and deckhand help. Rooted Coast Design put the numbers right on the homepage on purpose: charter customers compare prices before anything else, and hiding them costs bookings.
Crab & Bottomfish Combo
From $255 / person
Pull the pots at first light, then jig lingcod and black rockfish on the nearshore reefs. Six hours, two limits, one very full cooler. Our most booked trip since 2018.
Trip details
Ocean Salmon
From $295 / person
July through September, Chinook and coho on the open Pacific. Eight hours, all tackle provided, fish bled and iced the minute they hit the deck.
Trip details
The proof
Last season, by the numbers
We keep a log for every trip, the same habit Curt picked up running commercial gear. In the 2025 season the Marta Jean ran 212 trips, and guests took home limits of Dungeness on 178 of them. Average crab count per boat on bay trips: 41.
- 178 of 212 trips limited out on Dungeness in 2025
- Salmon trips averaged 1.7 fish per rod through August
- Zero canceled bookings without a full refund or reschedule
“Curt had my two boys banding crab like deckhands within an hour. We ate half our catch on the tailgate before we even left the marina parking lot.”
Marcus T., Tacoma. Bay crabbing trip, June 2025
Why Slack Tide
Small boat. Slack water. Full pots.
The name is not decoration. Crab gear fishes best at slack tide, the quiet hour between the ebb and the flood, and we build every departure around the tide book instead of a fixed clock. It is a small discipline that fills pots, and it is the kind of detail a bigger operation running three boats on a schedule cannot offer.
- Departures timed to the tide, not a timetable
- Six guests max, so everyone works the gear
- Crab cooked on the dock, fish filleted and sealed
- Straight answers about weather, seasons, and cancellations
The Tide Line
Opening-day emails, nothing else
One email when crab season dates are announced, one when salmon quotas are set, and the occasional heads-up when a prime weekend date opens back up. Four to six emails a year, total.
You are on the list. We will email you when season dates drop.
Reviews
What guests say back at the dock
★★★★★
Booked the combo trip for my dad's 70th. Limits of crab by 8am, limits of rockfish by 11. Curt filleted everything while we drank coffee in the cabin.Dana W. Olympia, WA
★★★★★
Third year in a row on the salmon opener. He watches the weather like a hawk and tells you the truth about it, which I respect more than a guaranteed trip.Rich and Karen L. Portland, OR
★★★★★
Our 9-year-old pulled her own pot and has not stopped talking about it. The dockside crab cook at the end is worth the drive from Seattle by itself.Priya S. Seattle, WA
Summer weekends book out by April. Grab your date.
Tell us your group size and the weekend you are eyeing, and we will come back with tide-smart options within a day.