Mud crab Baits & Potential Chemoattractants

[Bobby W]

Hey guys I've done a little bit of research on chemoattracts for fish and coruscations, specifically amino acid chemoattracts.

If you didn't know what a chemoattractant is its basically an external stimuli that help to induce movement of chemotactic cells towards the direction of their highest concentration, or put simply a way for a fish to find there food easier and faster.

Now if you understand the main diet of a mud crab which is slow-moving or stationary bottom-dwelling animals such as mollusks, smaller crabs and worms. They also eat plant material but mainly mollusks such as mud cockle & mud whelk. There favorite food blended up would have a large amount of chemoattract amino acids in them that mud crabs specifically love. (in theory)

I would like to know if anyone has tried using them as crab trap bait blended up with other ingredients such as tuna oil pollard pilchard mince.

If I could use a Special bait mix for mud crabs it would be:

 

-Mud whelk Mince or Mud Cockle

-Tuna Oil

-Aniseed Oil

-Filler such at hydrated Pollard mix/ hydrated chicken feed

-Pilchard Mince

-Gelatin Powder for slow release or you can just freeze 

-30g of each amino acid Glycine, arginine and alanine

 

If you have any insight to this topic please share you help would be greatly appreciated. Or you can ask questions if you would like clarification on this topic.

 

Link from WA DPI for General mud crab information

 

[mangajack]

DPI research indicates that over 80% of mud crab diet is shellfish...

I have grabbed a couple of fist sized bunches of bearded mussels and crunched them under foot and placed them in the pot as bait. I have done this twice in two pots, another two pots had mullet.

They both worked equally well....no preference with either and both caught decent crabs.

These days to can't do this in SEQ with the shellfish protection laws.

I suppose it would come down to how well you can create the amino acids and blend them with oils for your attractant. Will they mix giving the correct scent??

 

[Bobby W]

@mangajack

Yea of course I want to reach out to someone to do an analysis on the amino acids in these local mud flats Mollusks . I will be moving to Port Macquarie in a month and that will enable me to do more extensive testing on Mollusks vs fish. Because I know the limit of most Mollusks is 20 per person and mud Mhelk are everywhere on the mid north coast of NSW. I will post these results within a year of testing. Pro cure have a Crab and Shrimp attractant that I might try aswell.