female blue swimmer crabs

[chrisfish]

Do you know whether it is OK to keep female blue swimmer crabs? I had a decent sized one in the crab pot today but let it go cause I wasn't sure. I know female muddies have to go back. I just checked the DPI site now and it does not say. Advice would be appreciated.

Cheers

[marlinqld]

female crabs are a no no...big time mate.......... for sand crabs and nud crabs

cheers

mike

[dnej]

Hey Mike,
is a "nud crab"
only allowed on a nuddy beach( LOL)
David

[marlinqld]

mate nud is short for "nudder bloody jenny.....damn!!!!!!!" LOL ::) ;D :o

[chrisfish]

yeah, that's what I thought and that's what my hard copy DPI guide from Dec 2002 says. It also has the minimum size of both as 15cm where as the (presumably current) web site says female mud crabs are protected, doesn't mention female blue swimmers and has the blue swimmer minimum size as 11.5cms instead of 15. I'll ring them tomorrow and post the answer on this thread.

[chrisfish]

I see the problem - I googled 'Queensland dpi fish sizes' and the first hit was not DPI, it was some site called www.sea-ex.com and it has the ambiguous information. The DPI site does say both females are protected.

Cheers!

[DALEPRICE]

i havent seen a run of female blue swimmers like we have just
had in the bribie passage for a long time. was doing a few test
trips last month to see when the males will move in and was pulling around
15 massive jennys each pot. good to see and i reckon we are
in for a great run of them before christmas. good to hear people are
puttin the females back.
cheers dale

[Rogue2]

A good sign....When the women move in the males are not to far behind....Muddies are starting to show up in the creeks and there are a lot of undersized males so they may be good to go by Christmas..

If you want a cheap crab bate use chicken necks they are cheap and they worked well for us last season.

Cya on the water :)

[the_old_fella]

The government says we have to obey the rules, finding what we have to obey is not easy.

seeing the result so far indicates you haven't found an answer, and the answer is:

both Mud and Sand crab males are legal and 15 and 11.5 cm respectively, however the Sand crab is measured in the notches preceeding the tips when you are looking from the back of the crab.

Be cautious, plastic measures can expand and contract with temperature variation, I have heard of a fisher having a near miss with the fisheries.

trust in the truth
Mike

[Jitlands]

Heaps of jenny sandies all loaded with berry in the Broadwater at teh moment, getting 10 plus per pot set overnight.

Upsetting to se blokes leaving dillies out overnight and killing dozens of em. Legal I know but mabey a review of the rules is required

[robersl]

went to bribie passage on sat morning we got a heap of females in3-4 of water in the dillie but found we got all bucks in 9-11m of water 6 intotal in 2 pulls then went home befored it pee'd rain

[onerabbit]

In NSW, I'm sure you know, keeping female crabs is ok. But I still let them go because they have a different, pretty yuk flavour to the males.

Muzz

[chrisfish]

i've emailed the webmaster at sea-ex letting them know female blue swimmers are protected in Qld as well, mostly cause I felt stupid about going to the wrong site and I figure others must suffer for that!!

[Hampo]

I was chatting to a guy from the fisheries and he said that we should be able to keep female Muddies over a certain size too, as the larger females actually eat the smaller males. #Females muddies also stop producing once they reach a certain size as well, so all they are doing are killing of the younger bucks. #But as he said, the suits sitting in th offices making the decisions probably dont know the difference between a male and a females to look at them any way.

Ben

PS. #New to this site and it is great to see so many people passionate about fishing and prepared to share any hints, tips and information they have. #Great work guys.

[Feral]

The reqason for the "smaller" size allowed now is that they measure them in a different place.