Lake Colorado City in west Texas has them...some of them are BIG

So what is the purpose of these crabs in freshwater lakes?

Only these small crabs? not blue crabs?

Yes, only the mud crabs, not blue crabs. They occupy a similar niche as crayfish, but were introduced through stockings.

I've seen this first hand. Some of the mullet make real deep runs into Clear Creek. I've caught a 12in mullet not 10 minutes after reeling in a catfish at Walter Hall Park

A few years ago, one of my buddies caught some crabs fishing in Mexico at Amistad. At least that was the story he told.

Crabs and Mexico....Shocking....

I've seen them at Granbury as well. There's some good information on them on this page.

I was up at Lake Texoma with the family last weekend...we were turning over rocks on the shoreline and found a brown crab carcas = look very similar to the one pictured above.

Thinking that was very strange I researched it. It is the Harris Mud Crab..an invasive species as someone said earlier competing for food sources with the crawfish. They were first discovered in Lake Texoma in 2008 by a scuba diver.

I still have the crab in my boat cup holder.

I have heard about them being spit up by bass in both Hubbard Creek and Ivie.
I have caught them in the Brazos River below PK on several occasions.

Giant freshwater prawns(shrimp) in the San Marcos River.

I am pretty sure they have been found in Acuna. Usually at night.

About 10-15 years ago we would find them under rocks in Lake Nasworthy, in West Texas, which is the last stop for the Concho river before Ivie. But we would catch 10 or 15 at a time and use them as catfish bait. They were always abundant.

Ive been finding good sized freshwater crab all around the brookshire area. I Found a bunch of blue crab in a creek and just today I saw one a little smaller than my hand in my pond out back, not sure what species it was. So far the ones Ive seen have all been in areas that dried up during the drought. Also been finding giant snails, unusual animals in unusual places.

Not much help Im sure but I have caught bass on Stillhouse and Belton on a ragetail crab imitation after hearing rumors there was a crab population. Still havent seen any first hand though.


No idea how to post pics but this is the lure.
[img]http://www.ragetail.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/crab55.png://[/img]

I know some folks are going to get mad for spilling the beans on their secret lure lol.

Not a coincidence that the lakes you mention are salty...for fresh water. The Brazos and Red River are very saline.