Something kind of interesting and little known, it's against the law to even have traps with you in the channel, lots of people put in at the bridge ramp and run up the channel into the lake to go crabbing, this is not legal, but the inspectors use common sense and don't enforce that little bit of legislation, but, use a trap in the channel and they are on you real quick.
I’ve tried a few times down south up north and every time someone interferes with the traps
more southern Sydney and south coast
wasn’t prepared to sit on them all day so gave it away
There's a bit to it, lift nets you just set your 4 per person, and check them every 10 minutes or so, traps 2 per person I set late afternoon and go lift netting near them at daylight the next morning, and pull them after a few "runs" of the lift nets, sometimes you will get your bag limit out of the traps and a couple of runs of the lift nets. Setting them during the day and just leaving is asking for share farmers and thieves to help themselves. Like all types of fishing, if you put in a bit of effort you will be successful, mind you, I have had a guy drive straight up to my traps and start pulling them, I just motored over and asked "how you going?" He was kind of sheepish and I then asked why he was pulling my gear, his reply "I thought they were mine" I then pointed out my name on the marker buoy, he just dropped it back in, and we exchanged "words" and I told him in pretty clear English how it would end if he was anywhere near my stuff again.
That really sucks ay other people pulling your traps.. that Jeoff Fenich got charged for doing that exact same thing, its only like $30 for 4 traps its much fun pulling your own rather than a spur of a moment thing to lift someone elses to make your day happy
Here in Sydney we get heapsof blue swimmers just by the hook sometimes they wont let go of the bait without being fouled hook
I heard there are only 2 fishery officers from windang to south sydney surely this cant be true? Anyway its off topic
There used to be only two Fisheries guys, but there's probably 6 now, the office is still in the same place, never had any trouble with them, they checked me last summer and told me the writing on my floats was a bit faded, but just more or less counted my traps, checked my crabs for size (never a problem there) and had a bit of a chat and went over to another guy crabbing to check him.
Say there is 6 they would have to team up for security that is quiet a long steretch for 3 lots of couples to impose fishing rules probably why people get away with lifting your traps dirty buggers
How do u prepair and cook the crabs? Boil,wok, steam?
Mostly just boil them whole, but I have tried cleaning first, then steaming, but prefer to do whole, my cooker will hold over 30 crabs in one go, I use the salt water slurry to cool them. I eat one or two crabs straight out of the cooker, still hot, the rest I put in my downstairs fridge, and they are eaten fresh in the next few days, some I will do in my chilli crab recipe that I posted here years OK, I have also pickled some like they do in SA, I only keep around 10 crabs, the rest go to who ever I go out with, or given to family who also love them. Crabbing is great fun, very productive and easy to do, don't believe you can only get them during summer.
We're missing the crabbing up our way (mud crabs). We used to be guaranteed a feed every time, and living only 900m from the ramp we would only take two pots (or traps as you southerners call them). We could zip out on a Friday arvo, be back in around an hour and have our feed of muddies for the evening. Do it again Saturday if we wanted. We had the tides and bait worked out, it was awesome.
About 4 years ago a Pro Crabber moved in, lives on his mother ship down near the boat ramp, and now, we haven't been able to get a crab since Christmas. The talk of our little town is the same, very few and far between. Everyone here woujld only ever take enough for a feed, nearly no one would need there full 'quota' of pots, or bag out, there was no need. Funnily enough, we don't even see Jennys, or undersize Bucks, which I thought was strange.
We're all hoping now that the place has been raped that the Pro will move on and let it get back to normal. Discussions at the ramp nowadays are more about how long that process takes, we're not too sure on how long it takes for an area to recover from this. I've got nothing against the Pro's, everyone's gotta earn a living, but the area has been decimated, there's got to be a way that we all can work the sustainable side.
Fortunately though, we're in the process of moving further north and keeping this house as our holiday house, so with a bit of luck we'll get back onto the crabs again... damn I miss them
Cheers
Corry
Most pros won't hang around if the crabbing drops off, there's been about 4-5 pro crabbers in Lake Illawarra for generations, and the crab numbers are pretty well stable, some years there's heaps (this year) other times they get a bit harder to find, but overall, it seems sustainable, then add a hundred rec crabbers every day, I reckon we take as many as the pros.
Yeah that little lake is very popular especially on public holidays or school holidays it gets jammed packed people everywhere so much some guys just motor 20 meters off the edge and anchor just so they have somewhere to fish LOL
The lake itself is pretty big, the channel to the ocean, under Windang bridge is pretty narrow, when the Flathead are on it's crowded, and the same during Blackfish season, years ago when there was plenty of Prawns the entire channel was just a million lights with people Prawning.
just wait until the “scientists” run their models on it. They’ll come up with a sub-30% of virgin biomass for sure.Originally Posted by Noelm
Democracy: Simply a system that allows the 51% to steal from the other 49%.
Yeah, probably, just recently we had a size limit increase (but it's still too small) and last year we had a gear number reduction, they took one lift net off us, and decreased the bag limit by half, but, with a couple of people, 8 is plenty to look after, if my 2 grandsons and I go, we can legally have 12, but I still only take max of 10, that's is a lot of bait and quite a bit of work to check them every 10 minutes or so.
Its pretty cool that you can still get a good feed of crabs and fish in heavily populated areas close to Sydney and the Gong...likewise Moreton bay and Sunshine coast..
It speaks of a well run fishery in general.
Unfortunately though in QLD we now seem to be getting a lot of input from greens with an agenda spouting self serving psuedo-science when it comes to fisheries management..
I think we need a change of government up here very soon or us fisho's will be shafted..
Thats not to understate the value of true science when it comes to sustainably managing our fisheries..we just need it run in an impartial manner using hard data instead of phony figures....
Sooner or later we may even have to look harder at the value of exporting our premium seafood vs their worth if kept for Rec fishers and the value that adds to the local economies..
A neighbor built himself a sailboat and spent the next 30 years sailing the worlds ocean....he told me he always had a trolling line out the back wherever he went but found that the only real action he got was when he sailed back to within 200 km's of Australia..it seems the rest of the oceans have already been pillaged....
The sail boat trolling thing is kind of interesting, a few years ago, I crewed on a charter sail boat from the Whitsundays to Sydney, we had two troll lines out all the way (during daylight) and in the entire trip we got two fish, one small Mackeral about 500 yards from the Harbour at Airlie Beach, and one Striped Tuna just as we entered Sydney Harbour, maybe going too slow?
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