Outdoors pick of the week: Hood Canal shrimp

Last chance for a limit of big, tasty, spot shrimp, as Hood Canal opens for a final day of fishing on Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The earlier portion of the season was good, but gas prices and windy weather kept some folks off the water, so biologists say there are more than enough of the critters left to open the state’s premier prawn fishery for one last shot.

If you don’t have a favorite place, try the bottom (south) half of Dabob Bay (the west shoreline of the Toandos Peninsula) in 215 to 235 feet of water. Brian McLaughlin at the state Fish and Wildlife Department’s Point Whitney Shellfish Lab said one of the best places in that area is off Zelatched Point, down toward the tip of the Toandos Peninsula and one of the agency’s test fishing spots.

There’s a rough launch at the Point Whitney Lab; a better ramp at the Quilcene Marina off Linger Longer Road; a new state ramp at Pleasant Harbor, just south of Dosewallips State Park; or at Misery Point, on the Bangor side of the Canal, just south of Dabob Bay.

It will be crowded no matter where you launch, and if the south end of the canal is your shrimping hole, you should know that popular Twanoh State Park will have limited parking facilities for boaters this year because of construction.

Wayne Kruse