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Scott nthQld
08-09-2008, 09:07 AM
Well, I took the old man out crabbing and fishing yesterday arvo, mainly focusing on crabbing, we needed a bit more water to get to our crabbin spots. We had 4 pots between us and baited with mackeral frames and minced pillies. We set the pots in a little side creek off the Bohle river, in a nice deep channel net to the mangrove lined mud bank, perfect territory.

Once the pots were set, I come up onto a sand bar, and starting pumping a few yabbies, and made our way up to a little gravelly bump to fish for some grunter and whiting. Fishing was a bit slow with only a handful of tiddlers landed, would've made great live baits though.

After about 4 hours changing spot and catching nothing but babies, we set off to collect the pots.

we pulled the first pot to reveal a crushed mass of mesh and metal.....well looks like old salty wanted the bait and perhaps crabs more than us, so we untagled the mess to get it to lay flat and found 3 or 4 big crab legs, well, at least we know they are there, lets just hope the croc didn't beat us to them.

Coming up on the second pot, I think we found the culprit, sitting up on the bank, an old mate I haven't seen in a while, was a 16 footer, I can tell it was the same one cos he's missing a couple of scoots down near the tip of his tail. We'll a bit bigger than I last saw hime, but still very fat, so I'm guessing there's a few roos and wild pigs less because of him.

Dad kept a keen eye on him while I pulled the second pot to reveal 3 big muddies inside, 2 bucks and one massive jenny. Put the bucks in the ice slurry, (faster, safer and easier then tieing them up, the ice puts them to 'sleep' almost instantly) and let the jenny go. 3rd Pot we pulled up another 3 bucks, all just over legal, and tonnes of tiny ones and a couple of legal sand crabs, which were kept (babies thrown back).

The 4th pot was feeling very heavy, and when it surfaced there were 2 decent cod of 50cm inside, both with a small muddy wedged sideways in their massive gob, allong for the ride was another 4 tasty bucks.

It was the best crabbin I have seen in a long time, 4 pots, 9 muddies and 2 sandies + a couple of cod, and all it cost me was a pot and about 5L of fuel.

Was a great way to spend father's day arvo with the old man, the only downside was, that though the crabs felt full, all but 3 were half empty, and those cod went down a treat last night. So its sand crab sandwiches fo lunch today and crab with mayo on crackers for smoko....gotta love NQ

upstart
09-09-2008, 08:10 PM
Great report mate. Is the snappin handbag shy of boats? I'll have the casting deck in HelBent ready in a week or so but I don't think it'll be big enough for me and a 16 footer!!

ronnien
09-09-2008, 08:18 PM
good report scott.

the bohle does not give up muddies so easy so you done good.
where was the ph call to help eat these crabs (nice).

ron.

Scott nthQld
10-09-2008, 09:08 AM
upstart, no this handbag isn't boat shy at all, at least not until you get really close to it. We were maybe 10-20m away when I spotted him and he didn't budge, was still there after we collected the pots pots and were heding back. But I guess you get that when there's so many boats in the Bohle.

Thanks ronnie, I think it was more arse than class though. I noticed as well, that there are way less pots in the Bohle compared to 12 months ago, at one stage their you could hardly move for crab pots. I had mine in a little tributary coming off the Bohle that you need a bit of water to get though...at least 1.5m, even for your boat, though its deeper once inside, its getting into it thats the hard part, plenty of logs in the way and very shallow. We used to pull maybe 3-4 crabs on a good day from there but I think some of the pressure has been eased off over the last 12 months and the larger crabs are able to grow bigger. the little creek looks like a prime spot for barra and jacks and maybe fingermark, but we've never managed to pull anything other than bream and whiting out of there. Live baits stay untouched, lures might as well be hanging on the wall, but I don't think I've ever fished the right tide for it though, cos I've always needed a bit of water to get in there, the water's always been up in the mangroves, maybe I should just head up there on the high, and just keep fishing until the tide goes out and comes back in. Will need plenty of insect repellant though, I might just fill the esky with aeroguard and sit in that

There was a while though where it seemed every muddy we pulled up was just under, and there were loads of them, sometimes getting upto 10 of these just unders in the one pot, looks like they've grown up now.

We kept a couple whole and uncooked and mum made up a really nice crab soup sort of thing yesterday, dad and I are the only ones that eat crab so we had a nice feast between the 2 of us.....everyone else had to settle for cheese and ham jaffles...haha sucks to be them.