Any King Crab boats in Perth ?

I went fishing for Tassy Giant crabs for about 6 months back when many years ago. Back then a baby one was worth $25 on its own...Its worth alot more now, but its Serisouly regulated an watched intencly for any drop in numbers. It was something of a buzz I can tell you. When you get a 30 lb crab come up... Saw its large claw break a guys hand once... stupid muppit thought he could could hold it by the claws an wrapped his hand round INSIDE the claws.... Mistake :)

 

http://www.nmdc.com.au/fishy-fun-learning/marine-life-in-focus/giant-crab/

 

Sadly have not been able to buy any over here. Been to hileries, Freo etc an nada. So either you cant get em here, or they jsut dont import. (which is prolly a good thing, cos frozen fish is generally rubbish.

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southcity104's picture

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a few crab boats left.

Thu, 2015-02-26 09:38

 there's a recieval depot on Cockburn road. I think they mainly do champagne crabs. Pm us 

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ahh ok cheers mate. yer I was

Thu, 2015-02-26 10:06

ahh ok cheers mate. yer I was just reading up on WA fish species an came across it... Not alot in this world beats a king crab for taste...

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They do get some on the south

Thu, 2015-02-26 11:34

They do get some on the south coast, but small numbers along with the snow crab.

I dont think they are targetted here

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 Saw a boat unload 200kg the

Thu, 2015-02-26 12:16

 Saw a boat unload 200kg the other night in Albany. $70 per kilo they are getting

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 Think theres only like 4

Thu, 2015-02-26 12:47

 Think theres only like 4 million a year quota or somethink

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 Over there maybe. On sth

Thu, 2015-02-26 15:45

 Over there maybe. On sth coast of WA no quota yet. Changes in June 

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 Been quotas in tassy 20

Thu, 2015-02-26 17:07

 Been quotas in tassy 20 years i think. Is why thres only 4 million allowed per year. They grow slow.

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timboon's picture

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I'm pretty sure Tassy fell in

Fri, 2015-02-27 20:14

I'm pretty sure Tassy fell in line with SA and removed the bi-catch allowance from the cray boys & introduced quota's...

 

My Uncle now has the only ( he bought out the other ) KC lisence in SA...

 

My uncle and another fella started having a crack at them under a government endorsement, when the $/kg went up and the cray boys realised they were missing out on a $ then they started using the loophole and also cashing in...

 

Since then the endorsement have become a Lisence and the cray boys are no longer allowed to chase them... ( I think they allowed half a doz a season or something which they get when they stray their gear out into the mud )

 

My Uncle's quota is around the 13T mark, thats split between the Northen Zone ( Murray mouth - Kang Is ) and the Southern Zone...

 

I fished on the boat for a couple of seasons, pull the pots weekly and go drop/long lining in between days for BET & PUKA...

 

Last I knew they were still getting over $80 but that was about a month ago, late chinese NY combined with the lowish Aussie $ helped this season...

 

Jaggo sounds onto it regarding over here as i'm not sure what the G-O is but i know there are boats that do chase em according to my Unc...

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 Not in tassy they dot.kc

Fri, 2015-02-27 21:45

 Not in tassy they dot.kc tickets are impossible to get now. The fishery is massivly controlled an overseen by fisheries. I was in on end of the crayboats taking kgs....then gov hammered laws through to save the species.

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 Guy who lives across the

Sat, 2015-02-28 09:08

 Guy who lives across the road from my nanna here in albany targets the deep water crabs, I remeber as I kid he would bring one or 2 over every now and then for us. As far as I know he still does it as all the gear is still at his house but he never targeted the larger crabs that often it was mostly smaller ones like champagne or snow I think with long strings of plastic cray pots anchored at each end similar to how the lobster fishers in the US do it. 

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Yer They use metal pots in

Sat, 2015-02-28 09:29

Yer They use metal pots in Tassy for the KG's.... not as big as the Americans in Alska but big enough... Thing with KG's is you catch ALOT!! less of them, but they are worth more obviosuly.

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timboon's picture

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 Uncle uses the same pots as

Sat, 2015-02-28 09:51

 Uncle uses the same pots as cray fisherman in SA,

 

Same plastic neck, round pots steel frame/bottom. The major difference is he uses the cod end of a trawl net for the mesh as it has some give when the crabs grab hold and crush.

 

We used to run 20 lines of 5 pots with about 50 fathoms between each pot...

 

A good trip is about 500kg, cant remember what our average size/weight was but somewhere around the 3-4kg mark...

 

Split prices so was the med crabs that were of most value

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 There is a shit load of

Sat, 2015-02-28 09:53

 There is a shit load of country in the bight that doesnt get touched, My Uncle fishes as far down as about Pt Lincoln and back to the SE...

 

All that country from Lincoln to Esperance/Albany where ever the WA boys step in is untouched, too far to the shelf but no doubt that would be a good fishery on its own out there.

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takes a special kind of

Sat, 2015-02-28 10:07

takes a special kind of masocist to work the shelf... deep waters out there :)... I spent many years in Southern ocean an hated 90% of it lol... rough as hell msot days an twice as nasty... Mother nature doesnt fight fair ....:)... I keep forgetting how many pots you guys are allwoed to use.  40 pots in tassy really sucks....(unless the numbers ahve increaed today I dont know). But we would shoot all 40 in 1 string sometimes. other times it would be 4 strings of 10...

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 Not quite untouched. A few

Sat, 2015-02-28 11:38

 Not quite untouched. A few commercial boats fish (or atleast used to) the bight from Esperance.

 

Boat named 'African' sunk out there few years ago. 

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 But yeah ur right thats alot

Sat, 2015-02-28 11:39

 But yeah ur right thats alot of water for very few boats haha.

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 Yeh burnz is correct from

Sat, 2015-02-28 14:23

 Yeh burnz is correct from WA/SA border to cape naturaliste the kings secretly get hammered

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 My brother was working on a

Sat, 2015-02-28 15:07

 My brother was working on a boat off there they get Hapuka out deep and pinkys n shit in close. Reckons best fishing of his life. They unloaded at Esperance and got fuel from Eucla on occasion i think.

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 We chased swords and tuna

Sat, 2015-02-28 21:36

 We chased swords and tuna thru there for a few years.

Dont see much traffic unless far enough for the rhumb line Bass Str-Cape Leeuwin.

SW of Leeuwin nothing air or sea except the occasional SA Airlines Perth to Joburgh.

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The older you get the more you realize that no one has a f++king clue what they're doing.

Everyone's just winging it.

 

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 Hey rob which boats did you

Sun, 2015-03-01 14:55

 Hey rob which boats did you longline on? Much money in it? Do you think there'd be much fish built up out there now? Do you think there's many foreign boats catching off our coast?

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 A 50ft Westcoaster called

Sun, 2015-03-01 21:12

 A 50ft Westcoaster called Starfire then we built a steel aft wh called Southern Venture

Nothing in it now due to exchange rate.

Swordies will have built up a bit but the japs and Taiwanese work right up against the 200 mile EEZ

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 Give a man a mask, and he'll show you his true face...

 

 

The older you get the more you realize that no one has a f++king clue what they're doing.

Everyone's just winging it.

 

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 Still lots of long liners in

Sun, 2015-03-01 21:21

 Still lots of long liners in hobart. You may not get rich but its a good life an certainly more stable than soe. Working out off shelf its great when you hita school of stripys an fill your tanks...

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 Stripys??When we were at it,

Sun, 2015-03-01 21:33

 Stripys??

When we were at it, about a dozen Tasmanian boats came across cos they were struggling. 

Id just come home to Gero as my 1st daughter was born and we shut down for a month.

Turned GWN on and here was this bell end announcing theyd found a new fishery and were bringing 30 boats over

About 10 were there when i got back to Albany and they owned the joint.

Took about 6 months til the wheels fell off, bills werent getting paid, one was on the slipway then mysteriously caught fire.

I never quite understood what went wrong as they were catching similar to us.

Shandara, Santa Rocco and others.

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 Give a man a mask, and he'll show you his true face...

 

 

The older you get the more you realize that no one has a f++king clue what they're doing.

Everyone's just winging it.

 

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yer, many of em are not the

Mon, 2015-03-02 06:32

yer, many of em are not the brightest sparks in the box. Sadly I have intermate knollege of that. Had a skipper many years back on east coast of Tassy. we were (an get this) Targeting King flathead for shops.... sigh... Anyways it paid bills for a while. But he used to get stoned out of his skull most  days. So head deckie had to bring boat in one night in a shitfull storm. Once we got in we all quit on spot. 3/4 full tanks  rang fisheries an police, an walked off :D....

 

Why do you think I live in Perth, :D Tasmania is a hellhole to live in.

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 Saw star fire last week it's

Mon, 2015-03-02 05:26

 Saw star fire last week it's pilchard fishing in Albany. What was it like longlining on that? Pretty scary? Yeh I remember santo rocco, it's just finished in Sydney finally went broke. I also remember Star Trek and investigator. Ah the good old days. Id love to give it a crack now but too many uncertainties.