crabs or no crabs

Posted: Sat Aug 22, 2009 10:10 pm

You cant really de shell a hardback , put them on alive winking

Posted: Sat Aug 22, 2009 10:11 pm

royboy wrote:

in summer i never use mackeral as it puts a smell in the water and every crab for miles comes into your swim i use it in winter when the crabs have gone into deep water buts thats wat i believe

if thats what you believe royboy, so do i, you da man cool

Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2009 7:39 am

mackeral does attract the crabs that is for sure, however it is a good bait for summer species such as flounder around where i live but have never tried it as don't want to get crabbed off the beach so think i will stick to my lug/rag worm big grin

Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2009 12:51 pm

Ive had plenty of hounds on half a hardbacked crab whipped on when I aint had any peeler but peeler is best.......Wrasse love them too but aint had any other species on them.

You should cut them in half and break the back shell off then crush the hard legs and iner shell with plyers first for the hounds......recon they may well add an attraction for cod with lug ......not sure though ...never tried that but ....hey....cant hurt.

boansy big grin

Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2009 1:19 pm

cool as took lad out this morning caught loads of crabs although just hard back ones,

but threw them back in, might have to sacrefice any crabs that I catch next time and add them to the hook with worm.

As you say it cant hurt smug

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Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 6:36 am

boansy wrote:

Ive had plenty of hounds on half a hardbacked crab whipped on when I aint had any peeler but peeler is best.......Wrasse love them too but aint had any other species on them.

You should cut them in half and break the back shell off then crush the hard legs and iner shell with plyers first for the hounds......recon they may well add an attraction for cod with lug ......not sure though ...never tried that but ....hey....cant hurt.

boansy big grin

Certainly do attract the Cod, had my PB Cod earlier this year fishing with a Pulley Rig baited with 2 x Peeler, Lug & Squid.

Posted: Tue Aug 25, 2009 9:29 pm

just had a walk along our local beach having a look for bait and also building sand castles with the lad,

found a few crabs about the size of 50p pieces washed up on the beach as the tide was on its way out,

going to try and bait the crabs on my next outing in cumbria on weekend, will freezing the crabs be best to keep them longer as left them with their shells on.

Also got some great mussels which are going in the freezer too. Though slightly off topic are the mussels better de shelled and frozen or whats best way to store them.

Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2009 7:53 am

Never used mussels so can not comment on them but as for the crabs, you will need to keep them in a fridge and ideally in sea water that should be changed every day or two.

Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2009 8:07 am

BENBO...............Mussels are a fine bait, in my opinion they are better shelled first and they are a hell of a job to do!!!!!!!! open them with a tea spoon better than a knife where you can slip and cut yourself,when they are open cut the "leg"and detatch the snotty bit from the shell you can either just freeze them then or....................salt them where you draw most of them moisture off then freeze them, or lay them on newspaper for a spell and this takes off a lot of the snot, then freeze them

mussels are a good bait but are best used in a "cocktail" with whatever is your own preference

Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 11:09 am

awesome, thanks for the info,

going to de-shell the mussels later today and freeze them for the weekend.

Hopefully get some decent sized fish with them.

thanks for all your help everyone

regards

Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 3:36 pm

a mate spoke to me about musscle last neet,,,ive alwasy froze mine but he said no in a jar musscle layer salt musscle salt musscle salt etc till full then cover in water replacing lid ??????