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    Re: Crabs Archived Message

    Posted by Geno BOP on 23/9/2007, 10:40 am, in reply to "Crabs"

    Hi Trev,
    Crabs are a fact of life for fishermen.
    The Paddlers are in fact swimmers and can be found swimming at any level in the water column, esp behind nice juicy berley bags hung off boats.
    I've seen it before.

    So you're not going to stop paddle crabs no matter what you use.
    Rock crabs are a different story and longer floating traces will beat them.

    Crabs are mostly a daytime problem as the clever ones dig in for the night and keep out of the way of fish.

    In a partial answer to your question then as to what way to beat the crabs, I'd say you can't absolutely, but you can certainly make life hard for them by using a floated occy-based bait.
    If these pesky crabs want to swim up and grab at a hunk of occy, then good luck to them that a fish doesn't spot them and scoff them.
    As to your comment about crabs all hanging about over a piece of bait... you only have to look at what happens to an opened tuatua shell on 90 mile Beach for your answer there.
    Boy, there's crabs for Africa all over it!
    All that excitement MUST be noticed by predators at some stage.So your comment on natural attractant is true.

    The major question is: Will my bait last LONG ENOUGH for a fish to grab it?
    If you make it occy-based it will.
    All you have to do is put a SMALL piece of flavour bait in against it.I like a small piece of pilly fillet or half an anchovy.
    Occy drives crabs nuts... they'll fight over it but don't seem able to clip any tucker off it.
    Lice also tend to leave it alone.

    So maybe you have an another answer now Trev... it's certainly worth a try and knowing so many diversa supply of occy won't ever be a problem.

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