Can And how do you use crabs for bait? I know You can but i dont know how to hook them or what size of crab to use? Do you leave the shell on when you use it for bait?


-thanks!

If big enough, take a BIG knife and cut them in quarters......take the legs off and hook in the main body down close to where the legs were. If small, just cut them in half and hook the same way. I don't know for sure, but I think they have to be of legal size, even using them for bait. Any comments??
Dusty

I use the little silver dollar sized crabs for bait with good results. I catch them with a long handle bait net under the lights at night gathering any and all that swim up. I also know some spots such as the fish pass where there are loads of small fiddlers and the like on the ground out in the flats and small dunes next to the cut. You can dig them out of the ground easily with a stout tool like a large screwdriver etc. They will hide in their little burrows when they see you.

I then use them to fish for redfish, and one of my favorites to catch, big sheapshead. Fish for the sheapies using a small crab on a stout but not too large hook, with a generous steel leader and a small amount of lead crimped above the hook a few feet. Use this rig to drop in amonst them as they feed around the pier pilons for crabs and barnacles. I assure you, if one of them sees a small crab...it WILL take it. Then all bets are off on getting him past the barnacle encrusted piers or Jetty rocks. I like to wade up to the piers and cast into them if possible rather than fish off them for this, of course I'm not talking about the big public piers going into the surf...where I'd be a nusance. (although I have done so on occasions at night when it is just myself and a few other kooks!)

Oh yeah....the most important thing.
Get you a good leather work glove and a pair of pliers to aid in baiting the little boogers, or they will of course pinch the snot out of you. I hook them through the back of the shell easily when they are that size.

Ok thanks guys i will try that.