my cousin works for DPI, Fisheries and Mines in Darwin. So I sent him some happy snaps of my fishing holiday and remarked how tough it is to catch a mudcrab down here and it was getting to the stage where I would have to buy some if I was to ever taste their sweet meat again. This is what came back....
"One rule mate is we never buy Muddies up here- they're piss easy to catch as long as you get the location, time, tides, moon-phase, bait, and time of year right - which we do...
and again...
The poor fellows,suppose they expect us to feel sorry for them.
Only kidding half their luck.
Thats it,Im going to Darwin,true though it is getting harder to find a feed of mudcrabs.
They look pretty happy with themselves.
Paul
Surely they couldn't eat all them!!
Brad
Paul is in lust.
GO THE CRUISER UTES!
....OH WHAT A FEELING!
need the chille sauce
Ok They made the statement :
"One rule mate is we never buy Muddies up here- they're piss easy to catch as long as you get the location, time, tides, moon-phase, bait, and time of year right - which we do...
WHAT IS DA RULES
What Time?
What Tide?
What moon phase?
I want DETAILS please fill in the answers to DA Rules
Every time I go to they Tackle shops to get some pots, they say they work BLOODY GREAT Mate.
They must think I am stupid, How come if they work so BLOODY GREAT, every time I go in there they don't have some in them
Is there something they are not telling me >
out of intrest what type of pots do you fellas use up north?
foldable round
foldable square
wire mesh
or witches hats (dillies)
Most blokes use the foldable square ones. I use the foldable round ones from ....... as they are a bit more solid. Some get ripped up by saw fish others possibly crocs, still others I have had cut open by share farmers who just slash the trap open, dump the crab and piss off. If you don't have your wits about you, you keep checking a trap with a bloody great hole in it. Share farming is becoming a bit of a problem and there are always plenty of blokes ready to lift your traps for you if not steal the whole trap, particularly in Darwin harbour.
We are allowed 5 traps per person, 10 per boat. Each crabber can take 10 crabs with a limit of 30 per boat. Size limit is 130mm for males and 140 for females. I reckon they should cut the number to 5 per person and 15 per boat but many people up here would disagree.
After chasing Muddies in Port Mac NSW and being lucky to get 1 or 2, Darwin is heaven. In fact we are pretty much sick of mud crab and only target them when visitors come up. You tend to gorge out for 12 months or so, same with prawns. We can pretty well go out and get a feed at will. We only take one per diner and one spare. Last time we were out we pulled up 13 males and kept 8 and still had crab left over after the meal.
There is no hard and fast rule about where and when, sometimes the crabs don't know the rules about 'best times' that man has decreed. Usually I try to get to the spot on the run in tide and fish to just after the top. I have found that after the top you tend to get more females, but sometimes it is the other way around. Best to shift the traps as the tide rises and begins to flood the mangroves. Arched mangroves appear to be best but probably only because that is where we mainly fish. I have caught good crabs out in the bays on mud flats.
Not uncommon to catch a good size cod or threadfin salmon in a trap and have often caught saw fish. This time of year stingers are about and you can get a nasty sting from a tenticle on the rope or trap. They are nearly impossible to see and are very painful. The scars on my arm from my last outing have just dissapeared.
Best bait I have found is fresh catfish which are never hard to come by, and golden snapper heads. We use stainless crab bait clips, not those gutter guard bait holders. Bit hard to cram a barra or goldie head into one of those. Some blokes use pvc cylinders with canned dog food, but I save my frames and heads.
pete
So whats the size limmit up there for muddies and i see u kept jennies are u alowed to in darwin cheres krause
the rules up there are that you can keep females larger than 14cm - as long as there are no eggs on em,
Males have to be larger than 13cm.
On my last trip to Darwin and Arnhem land, we rarely caught a crab smaller than 17 cm across the carapace, and the crabs were just about all bucks. I had to make sure I ate a jenny though just becaus it is forbidden in QLD and my misses is/was a fisheries officer on the coast
picked this one up as we crused the shallows sight casting for barra. We caught it on the "desnagging stick" It grabbed the stick and would not let go. Silly enough to be eaten!
its good to see peple check your pots for you up thier too. If your game put razor blades in your ropes i know its mean but if your too lazy too set your own pots and feel the need to steal or destroy them then maybe a few cuts on the hand is letting them off light
Westie, Krausey and SF17fisherman,
I sent my cousin your questions and here are the answers, he is a marine biologist so the answers may be a mix of research and personal experience. To make it worse, he even sent back pics of them cooked and cleaned!!
Bloody Hell! Such interest. Well here goes... First things first - I work with a crab biologist up here and one spot she put me on was brilliant one day and crap a few days later, we tend to get the best results on the neaps (after a new moon) with 2-3m fall in the tide but that varies depending on where you are. Up here in Darwin we can get a 7m change (!!) but down in the bottom of the gulf, around the McArthur River, it's only 2-3m - but generally before and after the neaps work the best. Too big a change, especially here in Darwin (the crabs in the photo came from the Adelaide River) and the pots get washed out of the creeks or stay high and dry for a few hours. We generally fish on a 6-4m change. We crab during the day - easier - and crabs tend to be a little less active at night. We look for creeks that have lots of active holes in the banks. And the more mangroves on the bank, the better. Big contiguous areas of mangroves better then areas where the cover is patchy. Avicennia and Rhizophora mangrove species also the best.
As far as pots go, I use the circular collapsable type but have had good success with the rectangular ones that fold up and join in the middle - don't pay too much for fancy pots - it doesn't really matter what type you use as long as they aren't fiddly - find the rectangular ones the easiest. The bait is the critical thing. The commercial crabbers use horse meat - lots of blood - also used roo meat with good success - and chicken wings are excellent, we put them in "packets" made out of gutter guard plastic mesh "sewn" with fencing clips (little circular clips you close with pliers) - nice and strong although some of the big boys can mangle one in 30 minutes flat. Attach the bait to the bottom of the trap with a cable tie - bait DOWN when you throw the trap in. We tried coating the bait in aniseed oil once but the result was inconclusive - but we use it when we can. Have used Dilly's before but only tend to get once crab per bait as bigger crabs will sit on the bait and push othes away - so when you pull it, you only get one. With the closed pots we get 3-4 to a pull - bit only tend to get one big one at a time - and that leads to another point - we leave the pots in for the first hour and a bit (gives us a chance to snag a barra or two) to get the scent out into the creek, but after that we pull them as often as we can. What usually happens once a big crab goes in, is that it keeps other big crabs out (may have a few smaller ones in before big crab arrives) - so the quicker you can pull him out, the quicker the next big fella arrives. They are very cannibalistic, so big ones will give the smaller ones a bollocking if the bait goes - so don't leave them in for too long. We usually go out with 10 pots (our legal limit for two adults) so that usually means a pot gets pulled every 30-40 minutes after the first soak.
Size limits are 14cm carapace width for ladies (and yes we can kep non-berried jennies) and 13 for the boys but they must be full (ie not just moulted). The photo I sent didn't include two that had scuttled under the car behind us while we weren't looking - not sure of our limit (my "rule book" is in my tackle box) but I think it's 10 per adult, max 35 per boat) and that day we caught at least 20 other females that were legal but empty so threw them back. Which brings me to a final bit of info - they breed (up here at least) just before the wet and they have to moult to breed. jennies with eggs go offshore to spawn - way offshore - so forget any decent catches between November and February - all you'll get is sad old males (and very few of those) and juveniles that mostly hide in their holes.
Here's a before and after - just so you can tell the difference between full and empty crabs. Good luck boys.
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