Best Crab Nets (Legal) for SA

[PeterInSA]

Last time out crabbing wife pulls up one for two nets, dragging the rope on the edge of the boat and wham, the rope breaks, probably had 2 crabs in the net to give it a bit of weight and she pulled the net up fast causing extra strain. My partner in life was not happy.

The rope looked OK for 10 to 15 years old. Anyeay we are going to replace our single hook units with double hoop. But whick one.

In SA there appears to be 3 main versions Double hoops 1 with nylon net on the side and bottom.2 Nylon with chicken wire on the bottom and 3 Nylon Nets with a mesh of rods approx 2 mm thick. Some nets also have floats on the three nylon ropes that attache the net to the pull up line.

Comments appreciated

Peter

[lethal098]

i have done a fair bit of crabbing down there with my uncle (ex pro crabber) and we found that using the nylon bottom nets and sides by far yielded more crabs than the ones with mesh bottom. the mesh just tended to make them a little spooked when approaching baits, we have also found that using fish style baits also attracted a lot of vermin (port jackson sharks) that tend to destroy the nets very quickly, we use lamb neck chops and found these to be the most productive bait. still remember the times of 2 hours crabbing for 100+ blueys (sandies). great fun. cheers Lee

[PeterInSA]

Lee, Thanks for your comments.

When looking at the two hoops setup in the tackle shop, got into a conversation with salesperson and customer. It seems that my daughter gave me 2 new hoop nets that were illegal in SA. when in operation they look like a witches hat. A little float keeps the nylon mesh (holes 100mm x 100mm square) in the form of a witches hat and the bait in the middle of the hoop. SA reasoning is that these hoops can be a trap for small crabs and if the hoop breaks free of the rope or the setup on a bouy is forgotten about the crabs will die.

Without knowning the above before I used them, I set them up in the normal way with additional lines to the pull up rope and with the mesh dropping down it turned out they were more trouble than they are worth. Customer also mentioned in SA you cannot use Fish bait (and definitely not meat) in stockings etc in the crabs nets and claimed the penalities if caught you could lose your boat.

Peter

[lethal098]

PETER, yeah that sounds about right, i know that the only ones we used with the dilly type string were upside down witches hats with lead weights to keep them down. it is used more like a landing net rather than a trap, the law down there is a lot heavier than in QLD, if you break the law they take everything you have on the water and what was used to put it in the water, including the car and everything in it. cheers Lee