Thread: crabbing

I will be in fort Morgan next week and would like to do some pier fishing. I want to catch some crabs, the edible kind, I have a 32 inch diameter net and was wondering what the best times were to catch crabs from the pier. I was also wondering what else was biting this time of year. Any help soul be greatly appreciated, thanks

I've never crabbed from the pier, but we put out traps in the bay and they do best at night.

How long do you leave your traps out and what do you bait them with? Also what crabs are edible? The only ones I've ever caught or seen are the small sand crabs you can find roaming the beach at night...or step on one while riding the waves.

We stayed on the lagoon about a half mile from the pass about 10 years ago and I had brought my cast net. There was a trap on the small pier by the house we were at. We caught bait and stuffed the bait box every morning and evening and by the end of the week probably had 25-30 nice sized blue crabs. We soaked a towel and kept them in vegetable tray in bottom of frig. needless to say they all perished the end of the week when we had our seafood feast.

Originally Posted by The_Duke

How long do you leave your traps out and what do you bait them with? Also what crabs are edible? The only ones I've ever caught or seen are the small sand crabs you can find roaming the beach at night...or step on one while riding the waves.

When we stay on Bon Secour Bay we leave the traps out (tied to a dock or on a float) for as long as we want crabs and just keep re-baiting them. We use mostly fish carcasses and heads or ladyfish, but early in the year or when we first get down we may use a few turkey necks or any other meat we can find marked down. I've not seen crabs turn their nose up at much, but I haven't tried a shark carcass (they are a big time crab predator). Putrefaction seems to attract them.

The edible ones are blues and the claws of stone crabs. Sometime in the near future, probably towards the end of this month, the females will be dropping eggs and you can net a lot along the beach (illegal to keep gravid females).

Go here for the rules.
http://www.outdooralabama.com/sites/..._Rec_Aug13.pdf

Drop them live into boiling water with seasoning. If that bothers your conscience you can add a lot of ice into the bucket of them and they will go into torpor (kind of catatonic) and you can pull them apart and just boil the meat case and claws (the edible parts). You can also make a soup out of the roe that are inside the shell (not the ones on the outside of a gravid female). They do not keep well after dieing so cook immediately. I have wondered sometimes if I could freeze the raw bodies in water (after getting them in torpor and pulling them apart) but have never tried.

I wear thick heavy gloves to pull them apart raw (available at Brunson Nets) to avoid bad bugs like vibrio. If you get a puncture or cut from a live or raw crab wash it thoroughly in peroxide or bleach.

We either heard by word of mouth or saw it somewhere that you could use can of tuna fish. We poked a bunch of holes in the can and nothing. I think the best bait is probably some kind of natural bait fish from local waters.

We normally use some fish scraps from cleaning to bait ours with. Always works for us. A few dozen boiled crabs and an ice cold one makes for some good eats.

Like everyone mentioned just toss your scraps in there and set out overnight. I have a couple of traps on each end of my pier and will even toss dinner scraps in there which the crabs like also, they really like my wife's cooking!!