Did someone call Jenny?

[benno573]

Hi all,

Being relatively new to chasing mud crabs around Brisbane, I decided I would give it a fair crack on Saturday before the weather turned to complete poo.

Working 6 pots (had the mrs with me so was not a naughty boy) over a 7 hour period we pulled up 78 crabs :woohoo: ... for 1 keeper. :pinch: measured about 17 across the shell and was full as so was an ample entree for Oz day dinner.

The majority of the throwback were jennys and some of them were huge, I measured one at 19.5cm across. There was a couple of other bucks in there that came in just undersized.

To the more experienced crabbers out there, is this an indication that I had just picked a bad spot or is this catch just indicative of the fishing pressure in the Brisbane area? there was a fairly steep drop off that on the low tide early in the morning showed plenty of evidence of larger crab holes, hence my choice to drop the pots.

So is it more about:

1) location

2) tides

3) traffic/fishing pressure

4) type of pot

5) bait

or is it a combination of all/some of the above?

Also - regards the share farmers / dirty rotten stinking thieves... do most people anchor up near their pots to prevent this or is it mostly in landbased locations that these issues rear their ugly mugs or are certain areas best avoided when dropping them from the boat as well? Just shelled out for some decent pots and don't really want to donate them to someone who is too tight to go and get their own.

Please note I'm not asking for your secret spot , just a few pointers to get me started, it seems to be a lot harder here than in CQ!

Cheers,

Benno <'><

[jon]

aside from when they breed jennies will try and steer clear of bucks coz they get smashed up. so if your pulling in bulk amounts of jennies id be moving location preferably into more shallow depths/ further up the creeks

[benno573]

so you would be just as likely to come across a spot that has mostly bucks as one that is mostly jennies?

I will be doing a bit more research on spots that may be a little less targetted as well, see if that helps.

Thanks for the advice mate.

[jon]

try getting right up the back of those feeder creeks even if it means walking the shallows and you should see more bucks.

[benno573]

hmmm... i may need a smaller boat for this... or those boots they wear in the snow to stop you sinking...