Swan river crabbers.

Spent yesterday arvo downing a few bevys and catching a few crabs in the swan, what better to do pre new years?

One thing i noticed was all the other crabbers in the area were soaking their pots for 30 mins or so at a time where as our approach is to set, go back to the first pot and pull straight away and repeat. IMO soaking pots allows the crabs to feed and leave pulling them repeatedly gives you a better chance of getting a crab thats just arrived and if its not in the pot yet after your pots in the water again any crab that was close by will find it in the time  it take for you to return for another pull. As for depth to set it always varies but recently we found staggering your pots in a few different depths to locate where the crabs are was a better option than sticking to the standard one long line of pots.

Happy crabbing swan fishers!

 

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Posts: 633

Date Joined: 19/10/11

nice feed their well done,

Sat, 2011-12-31 09:08

nice feed their well done, swan river crabs ohhh beautifull with a few cold ones :)

Posts: 133

Date Joined: 19/10/10

I love crabs and can never

Sat, 2011-12-31 09:37

I love crabs and can never find any in the Swan River any slight hint of where i should looking.

I know its a long shot

Posts: 633

Date Joined: 19/10/11

pm sent fishmad69

Sat, 2011-12-31 09:41

pm sent fishmad69

Righteo's picture

Posts: 404

Date Joined: 23/12/11

go deep, thats the he best i

Sat, 2011-12-31 09:44

go deep, thats the best i can do ;)

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DG's picture

Posts: 2

Date Joined: 10/01/09

Not a bad bag full!

Sat, 2011-12-31 10:00

Hey,  Not a bad effort there!

As you say it's a good idea to try your nets in different spots and depths to increase your chances of finding them, instead of having all your eggs in one basket - or nets in one spot. Also like you, I like to check pots straight away as it gives you an idea if they're around.

I went out this morning and had no luck at all and only pulled 1 undersize crab around Mosmans. Are these from upstream?

Happy Crabbing!

Righteo's picture

Posts: 404

Date Joined: 23/12/11

put in the time DG your so

Sat, 2011-12-31 10:05

put in the time DG your so close to cracking the code, maybe try afternoon ;) lots of undersize at the moment and even the size ones are still a bit light but extremely tasty, couple more months and they will be full with pink bellys :P

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Date Joined: 02/01/12

Rope length

Tue, 2012-01-03 17:15

Great catch righteo, mate can you tell me how much rope length ya need, ive only got standard shop length on my nets.

Cheers

Righteo's picture

Posts: 404

Date Joined: 23/12/11

run 3m longer than the depth

Tue, 2012-01-03 21:18

run 3m longer than the depth you plan on crabbing, its not %100 necessary but if you happen to get some solid tide movement it will pull your floats under, scored many a pot sitting a meter or 2 under the surface and wasnt recovered, last year i spotted one about 2 meters down dived in with my eye on the float and it smacked me square in between the eyes, free pot though but watch out if ya pull someones lost pot..... the rotten old bait is the worst thing ive ever smelt.... and ive smelt a few nasty things in my time. noticed an old bloke the otherday who had floats that where rectangular shape but forked at each end so he just wrapped the float with line, once he dropped in and it set its own depth. was a good idea... so basicly what eva depth he fished would always have minimun amount of rope out. me personally i like to have a bit extra out it lets you come up past the pot and and give u time to start a rapid retrieve and set the crab in the pot before ya steady your pull, you can actually feel crabs fall out at times it sucks.

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soupster51's picture

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Date Joined: 29/11/06

Quality

Sat, 2011-12-31 12:30

Not bad at all....... Nice work that man.

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Ben Derecki's picture

Posts: 1926

Date Joined: 10/10/07

Nice feed! We'be just got

Sat, 2011-12-31 12:42

Nice feed!
We'be just got back from a session and got zip, not even undersize.... we were in shallow water though, 5-6m. Picked up some nice tailor while we were waiting though.

r.gates's picture

Posts: 573

Date Joined: 15/11/10

Crabs in the Harvey Estuary

Sat, 2011-12-31 16:58

Sorry if I've hijacked your thread, Righteo, but Mrs gates had been nagging me to take her scooping for some crabs so on Thursday arvo (after our cray dive) we went for a walk along the shoreline just across the Old Coast Rd from our place and in an hour we'd scooped 8 sized ones....threw back a few undersize ones as well as the females...we only take the males.

She was happy and that gets me back in the good books

Crabs and crayfish for tea...went down a treat!

regards
rusty... 

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dkonig82's picture

Posts: 2091

Date Joined: 06/07/10

looking like i gotta get out

Sat, 2011-12-31 17:46

looking like i gotta get out for  a crab soon!

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n-1 (where n is the number of fishing rods which would cause your significant other to dump you. 

Posts: 514

Date Joined: 23/04/11

Agree 100% mate. We do the

Sat, 2011-12-31 17:54

Agree 100% mate. We do the same. Drop, go back and pull em....any delay is just blowie feeding.