![]() ![]() Setting up a bank of crab traps is hard work, but the effort is well worth it in the long run. ![]() Sheltered harbours or muddy estuaries are the best places to trap crabs. There are two main ways to collect crabs for bait, you can either scour a rocky shoreline, turning over boulders and weed, and searching rocky crevices, or you can actively trap crabs by placing sections of drainpipe or old car tyres along the shoreline. If you find a crab in this soft stage it is a ‘softie’ or ‘jelly’ and can be used for bait, although it is watery and generally far less effective than a crab at the splitting stage that has been peeled by hand. At this time the crab is particularly vulnerable to predators and needs to stay hidden. Once revealed, the new soft outer shell takes several days to sufficiently harden. Their soft internal body is protected by a hard outer shell, which is periodically shed to reveal the new softer shell, that has formed underneath. Moulting or shedding occurs as the newly formed internal soft shell expands: water is taken into the body causing the old outer shell to split and finally fall away. With the exception of the ‘hermit crab’ the collection, storage and preparation of any crabs is much the same in any case.Ĭrabs are Crustaceans. The common shore crab, or ‘green’ shore crab is the most widely used and available of all crabs, and the rest of this feature will focus specifically on them. In the North East region it is illegal to use edible crabs of any size for bait. There is also a legal size limit for edible crabs, which varies from area to area. They are unable to survive long out of water and are difficult to keep alive unless they are kept in cool oxygenated sea water. The edible crab and the velvet swimming crab are notoriously difficult to keep alive in captivity. The specie of most interest to anglers is the ‘common shore crab’ – Carcinus maenas (above right) is of most interest to anglers, but the ‘edible crab’ – Cancer pagurus and the ‘velvet swimming crab’ – Necora puber (above left) are also much sought after and excellent baits. All crabs have 10 appendages including the claws. The scientific measurement for a crab is across the back of the shell (the carapace), from between the eyes to where the rear legs join. There are 67 species of true crab that live in the seas around the British Isles, from the big and rarely seen ‘giant box crab’ (Paramola cuvieri), to the small ‘pea crab’ (Pinnotheres), the female of which actually lives inside a live mussel shell. ![]() Wrasse respond well to crab and will even ambush float-fished hardback crabs. In other parts of the country a whole peeled crab is effective for smooth hounds, bass, and various species of ray. Just a few peeled crab legs mounted on a small Aberdeen hook can be deadly for dabs. A crab bait disperses a powerful scent trail, attracting fish from over a wide area. Crab also accounts for other more opportunistic species such as whiting, pouting, plaice, and dabs. But with an understanding of when, where and what for, crab can be the difference between a bite-less session and a fish on every cast.Īlong my local North East shoreline crab is seen as the top bait for cod and coalfish for most of the year, and for particularly estuary and river flounders and eels during the summer. Peelers are certainly not a magical license to catch fish, as they are only of interest to certain species at certain times of year, and an angler using worm or other baits can easily out-fish one using crab in many situations. For many other anglers peelers are something of an enigma, misunderstood and rarely used. Peeler crabs can become an obsession among particularly match anglers who will spend an extraordinary amount of time collecting, storing, and preparing them for fishing use. ![]()
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