smashed crabs

[marshy]

Hi all , I took a good mate of mine crabbing on good friday & we managed to catch a feed of sandies.When we retrieved one of our dillies we found one rather sad looking fellow who had his whole body eaten. My question is what does this?. Our thoughts are an eel or maybe a bigger crab.

Marhsy

Attachment 4297

[Addz08]

Hi all, I,ve had the same problem with muddies too.. I,m thinkin it maybe the other crabs, when i,ve pulled up pots i,ve had the other crabs completely smash the body of another and it,s still hangin on to it..

[trueblue]

Cobia eat sand crabs!

thats why they are nicknamed 'crabeaters'

[kingtin]

Whenever I've had that happen (quite frequently at the Pin), there always seems to be a bloody big jenny in the pot and I swear she's got a smug self-satisfied grin on her face

The fairer sex? you must be joking! and I ain't just talking about crabs

[sambos]

Possibly Other Crabs But Octupus Love Them To

[Chezzy13]

I agree with Kingtin here, everytime Iv had a big Jenny in my pot, you can bet theres a smashed smaller male, doomed in the clucthes of her nippers..

[marty+jojo]

turtles or sharks.

[Freeeedom]

Turtles love them if they can get at them. If you're using dillies then the sandies are easy prey for turtles. I've lifted a dilly once which weighed a ton. In it was a big turtle tangled in the netting with a sandcrab still in its mouth. Fortunately it got so excited when it saw the boat (or maybe it was me!) that it thrashed madly and tore its way free. The dillie was a complete write off.
Cheers Freeeedom

[Vitamin Sea]

I was out in the Bay a couple of week ends ago crabbing with the young fella, had a similar problem.

4 nets and bait keepers ripped to pieces, bits and pieces of crab all over the remaining net, I thought it must have been a turtle at first, until I picked out a stuck remora out of the 4th net, stands to reason a shark was having a free feed.

cheers

[Nico.d.R]

what smashes crabs?
to many rums .

[shubeej]

pulled up one of my pots once & there was an octapus hanging off the pot ,inside the pot there was one sandy or should i say one intact shell of a sandy the octopus must of sucked every bit of meat out of it .
shubeej

[JOE BLOW]

Nearly every time i go crabbing we have at least one crab pot that has a massive jenny that has eaten the bait from the pot and then just moves straight on to any sandies that are in there as well.
really annoying when there legal crabs but can't be measured cause the shell isn't all there and you have to throw back whats left of them.

cheers
B.kennedy

[dogsbody]

Tuskfish eat crab ask Webby

Dave.

[marshy]

Thanks for your replies guys. A big jenny seems the most likely cause, I wouldn't think a turtle or a cobia or even an octopus would bee seen dead in Boggy creek but you never know.

marshy

[sempre]

pulled up one of my pots once & there was an octapus hanging off the pot ,inside the pot there was one sandy or should i say one intact shell of a sandy the octopus must of sucked every bit of meat out of it .
shubeej

Have had this happen to spanner crabs a fair bit .
Sam...