Crabbing… if you haven’t tried it, you need to. All the gear is simple, and inexpensive, and BCF make it super easy with a ready to go, crabbing kit.
Inside you’ll find floats, tags to mark your pots, bait clips, zip ties and a pen to make sure everyone knows exactly who your pots belong to. When it comes to crabbing tips, we can offer a few.
Firstly – bait. It’s contentious. Ask any fisherman and they will tell you a variety of different bait that they swear by. From chicken carcasses and catfood. To whole mullet and fish frames, they’ve all been given a go. On the day we went out, Scotty showed up with a couple of whole mullet. We put slits down either sides of the fish to release all the oil and smell into the water, attracting the crabs. The one thing that most agree on is to put your bait in the middle of the pot, and tie it down. If the bait is positioned too close to the side of the pot, the crabs will have a go at it from the outside…aka, free feed! Securing your bait to the pot also stops it from rolling around, making the crabs have to physically enter to get their feed. Then you’re gold.
Next – pot placement. Don’t put your pots in a main channel, or one with strong tides. It’s not uncommon to see random crab pots hung up on mangroves or tangled around markers. This is due to the tide picking up pots and moving them from where they were originally put. A rule of thumb would be to look for little snake drains, or mangroves. Ideal crab territory.
So head out there and give crabbing a crack! Summer is the perfect time to do so, and what better way to round out a summer afternoon than with a sneaky beer or two and a big feed of delicious, Queensland crab.
Head to your local BCF to get kitted out. Get on it!
