Crabbing in Southern CA is Sparse! Try These Spots Instead

I’ve noticed a few people asking for the best spots to go crabbing in Southern California, and getting complete misinformation. For all those wondering, crabbing isn’t really a thing down there. Let’s go a bit more in-depth to answer this question fully.

According to California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife, Dungeness Crabs rarely travel south of Santa Barbara. This makes crabbing from shore in Los Angeles, San Diego, and other parts of Southern California very difficult. Your best options are to book a charter boat to take you to deeper waters or travel north to the Bay Area.

If you want to set up a trap on a pier in LA or take your fishing rod and snare to the beach and try your luck, you will probably come home empty-handed. Let’s go over your options

Disclaimer: As an affiliate of Fishingbooker.com & Cameron’s Seafood.com, I may receive a small commission of any sales driven to their website via my links. I am happy to promote their services because I’m confident they will serve my readers well.

Range of Dungeness Crab

Before you consider potential crabbing spots, you need to understand where it makes sense. Below is a map of the range of Dungeness Crabs on the West Coast. Coastlines shaded in green have reliable amounts of Dungeness crabs, while yellow is less reliable. The closer you get to the yellow region, you’re going to find fewer Dungeness Crabs.

The total span of Dungeness Crabs ranges from Unalaska, Alaska to Magdalena Bay, Baja California. However, they rarely go south of Santa Barbara, California (Source).

So, Dungeness Crabs aren’t an option in Socal, am I out of luck? Nope! You may want to consider a crabbing charter.

This local crabbing charter in Huntington Beach, CA may be a great option.

If you’re reading this from Southern California, you may be a little discouraged right now. Right now your only option to get into some serious, reliable crabbing is to travel north where Dungeness Crabs are at the shore. What if I told you that you could go on a crabbing trip right here in LA?

Captain Kevin runs his charter boat from Huntington Beach, CA, which is right outside of LA. He will take you and your family out on his 21’ Bayliner boat to catch various types of fish, lobsters, and crabs. The trip is very customizable to make it your ideal fishing trip, and you get to keep what you catch. Captain Kevin and his crew clean your catch so you can cook it as soon as you get home.

You may draw back at the idea of hiring a charter boat, but the alternative is driving hours north to go crabbing on crowded piers. Gas prices are unbelievable right now and you still need to buy crabbing gear. When you start to think about the price tag, a charter boat is actually a great deal.

Click here to check out Captain Kevin’s current prices (Affiliate link).

You may also want to consider buying Dungeness Crabs already caught and pre-cooked. It’s much cheaper than buying crabbing gear or booking a crabbing charter. I’m an affiliate for Cameron’s Seafood, convenient service that ships fresh shellfish to your front door (Affiliate link).

Closest Reliable Crabbing Spots to Southern California

If you decide charter boats are not for you and that you want to do the crabbing yourself, I’ll go over some spots that may just work. Let’s start by narrowing down an area that may be worthwhile.

While technically the Dungeness crab’s range goes all the way to Baja California, very few travel South of Santa Barbara. With this logic, one could say that the shoreline of North Santa Barbara will have reliable Dungeness crabs, right?

I thought this, but after asking around and reading up on the topic I realized crabbing from shore isn’t even heard of until you reach Monterey Bay, California. Even then, it isn’t as popular until you head a little further North to Half Moon Bay and The Bay Area.

If you want to go where the real crabbing action is, I recommend traveling north to The San Francisco Bay Area and using Pacifica Municipal Pier, Half Moon Bay Jetty, or one of the many Pacific Ocean beaches in the area. There, you’ll find like-minded crabbers and plenty of Dungeness Crabs.

These spots are popular and can get busy, but for good reason. Even with the huge popularity and constant crabbing, there are still a lot of Dungeness Crabs in their water. On top of that, any beach or pier north of these spots will serve as great crabbing spots, so long as they’re on the Pacific Ocean.

Just keep in mind that California’s DNR is strict about no crabbing in waters after the Golden Gate Bridge. Make sure you catch crabs on the Pacific Ocean and not the bay.

Possible crabbing piers, but I wouldn’t go there!

It’s a given that there are plenty of piers between San Francisco and Santa Barbara, but I can’t guarantee how many crabs you’ll find there. Nevertheless, if you want to test your luck and see if a few ring nets will bring in some crabs, I say go for it.

On the bright side, these are some lesser-known piers and won’t have as much foot traffic as those in the Bay Area. Bring a fishing rod and some friends and you’ll have a great day of fishing if not crabbing.

Harford Pier

Cayucos Pier

San Simeon Pier

Instead of catching your crabs, buy them fresh (for less money).

Before I finish this article I want to mention the option of buying crabs once again. Let’s do some quick math. My Chevy Colorado gets 20 miles a gallon, the current average gas price in California is $6.37 a gallon (June 2022). If I were to drive from LA to Half Moon Bay, It would take 6 hours and cost $120 in gas! That’s just one trip, I’d still need to drive back.

First off, I don’t know how California people survive those gas prices. Secondly, I could buy a dozen Dungeness Crab Legs on Cameron’s Seafood‘s website for half the price of gas (Affiliate link). I’d also save 12 hours and not have to go through the trouble of getting crabbing gear, bait, and so forth.

I’ll say it outright, I’m an affiliate for Cameron’s Seafood. I’ll get a small percentage of any sale that’s made after clicking that link at no extra cost to you. That’s not why I promote them. I do it because I want to save those in Socal from spending all day to get what could be delivered to their door at a fraction of the price. They also have amazing crab cakes.