So today I wanted to go try our hand at spanner crabs. We’ve got five good eating crabs here but the only ones we’ve caught before are the mud crabs. The spanner crabs are out in around 40-50m of water on the sandy flats and the trap is flat and called a dilly.
The boys had soccer this morning but after the game we hit the water. I hit the slow boat ramp because it’s after lunch on a Saturday and I know the ramp I like would be busy.
Cruising up the river i again regretted not being born rich. We got a couple hundred mm of rain last week so the waters gross but the boats and houses are nice.
We stopped at the other boat ramp and grabbed a buddy and his little boy. Then hit the ocean and we ran out about 5 miles until the reef turned to sand and I put the first dilly in 44m of water. I bought two dillies and had 100m of rope. I tied a float to each end of the rope, drove away from the floats holding the rope, evened it up and cut it assuming I had 50m in each string. First trap went out no issues. Then we ran another mile to 48m of water and I threw the second dilly in without thinking very hard. Well the rope went tight and then went under water. I saw what was happening just as it happened but we were to far away to stop it. I drove over to it and could see the float under water as a white glow.
I peeled my shirt off, grabbed some more rope and jumped in before we drifted off the mark and lost it. I swam down but couldn’t reach it the first time. So I came up and got my breath then went for it again. Idk how far down it was but I would guess 5-6m. I pulled the float back up, tied some more rope in-line then swam back to the boat. Once again, a few minutes of thinking would of avoided the polar swim in 22 deg water. You guys go ahead and laugh but I’m no fan of anything cold anymore.
We then went back to a reef and dropped a couple jigs for the few minutes we had to burn. Both of us just bought slow pitch jigging rods and wanted to see how they felt. I bought a PE3 rod and put one of my toriums on it until I find an Ocea jigger on the secondary market. He bought a PE4 and found a Ocea jigger 2000 on marketplace.
So away we went, my jig was on the bottom about 30 seconds when it got nailed. I was more shocked then I’ve ever been when a fish hit my line. He gave a good account of himself
In the end was just a dirty trevally. Not a fish I wanted to catch but it felt really good through that Daiwa and sparked an interest in the jigging game.
We drifted for another ten minutes then had to run back to retrieve the traps. They only soak for an hour and we had a ten minute drive to get there.
The first one had a bit of suspense. Considering it was a recon trip I didn’t expect much. The kids were all eyes and wouldn’t you know it we got a pair of the craziest looking crustaceans. Almost like a big red tick.
That was a good start considering we didn’t expect anything.
The second, deeper trap sounded like work so naturally I got my sidekick to do some of the work.
It got nearly to the boat and I couldn’t see anything. Then as it broke water I realised it was upside down and had a few on the other side.
The crowd went wild
We had six keepers all up out of a bag limit of 120. But we only had two dillies and we aren’t greedy anyway. So we rolled back home on a beauty winters day
Big tower on that black boat in the back.
