Determining if Crabs are legal to keep

[Rockfish]

Have been Crabbing with one of my fishing buddies who has a great deal of experience at it. For myself I have to turn them over to determine if they are male or female. He is able to tell by the shape of the crabs body from the upside and without looking at the underside. So far he had never been wrong and he is also almost never wrong when eyeballing size. Only once has he said “I not sure on that one, it is right on the line”. I measure it and it was just legal. I always measure them and turn them over and he always gets it right. I was rather impressed by this. Is this a common skill with those who have a lot of experience trapping crabs?

 

[scott craven]

After you crab for a while you can get pretty good at determining the sex and size.
I can tell without turning them over, and only have to measure a few.
Lately there has been more females, at least 3:1 over males.

 

[poet1971]

R S is right, you do tend to get used to identifying them from site alone. I have found the females tend to have a rounder carapace, both in length and thickness than the males. As for size you will Eventually develop an eye for keepers. This can cause some questions from people that aren't used to telling keepers apart. My wife often asks if I measured a crab just after I threw it back. She gets concerned that I was throwing back possible keepers. But if I'm in doubt I still measure.

 

[Fish Assassin]

Have to agree with them last two post..... Very true

 

[Rockfish]

Lately there has been more females, at least 3:1 over males.

That sounds about right or even less for us. We did have a recent good day when we had not checked the traps for a couple of days. One of our traps had 8 large crabs in it and only one was female, the other seven were keeper males. The trap has a calibrated opening that allows the undersize crabs to escaped. After a period of time any crab left in it is probably a keeper. We were also pretty sure no one had raided the trap because there had been a real wind storm in the basin for a couple of days and the dock was bouncing up and down which made it difficult to walk on it. Few would have been out fishing or trying to pull traps during that period. It did make us wonder about the disparity in that circumstance. I have noticed that sometimes when they are empty it appears that they have moved from where they were set (GPS tagged) like they have been pulled and dropped back down after a boat had drifted a bit in the wind. I also understand traps can drag in wind, that crabs migrate and sometimes you do just get lucky so don’t want to get paranoid.

 

[drilleryells]

That sounds about right or even less for us. We did have a recent good day when we had not checked the traps for a couple of days. One of our traps had 8 large crabs in it and only one was female, the other seven were keeper males. The trap has a calibrated opening that allows the undersize crabs to escaped. After a period of time any crab left in it is probably a keeper. We were also pretty sure no one had raided the trap because there had been a real wind storm in the basin for a couple of days and the dock was bouncing up and down which made it difficult to walk on it. Few would have been out fishing or trying to pull traps during that period. It did make us wonder about the disparity in that circumstance. I have noticed that sometimes when they are empty it appears that they have moved from where they were set (GPS tagged) like they have been pulled and dropped back down after a boat had drifted a bit in the wind. I also understand traps can drag in wind, that crabs migrate and sometimes you do just get lucky so don’t want to get paranoid.

Ive noticed there are always a few Traps that are pulled out of Sooke Harbour on a strong Ebb, you can see them floating out past the Light in the Harbour, somebody prob thinks they are stolen but i think they are lost soldiers.....

 

[AJS]

If you are catching females and undersized males you should change your bait strategy. For example, old rotten salmon or herring or chicken or whatever is less desirable to crabs and will probably land you a trap full of females and undersized males. Make sure your bait is FRESH, and I recommend chicken backs and necks over anything else. Do this and you should get you a trap full of large males. Also, I believe it is fairly easy to identify females without flipping them over and it's often not necessary anyways since it's rare to see a female large enough to keep.

Angler Jim

https://www.facebook.com/#!/VancouverIslandSalmonFishing

 

[GDW]

It's just experience no different then the new salmon fishermen struggling to identify a salmon in the net while an experienced angler will tell you what kind it is almost the moment the fish flashes beside the boat.

Keep crabbing you'll get an eye for it.

 

[Rockfish]

I will give the Chicken backs a try. Has anyone tried adding a Halibut fishing type scent chamber full of Herring oil in their crab traps?

 

[GDW]

Yes and I can tell you it doesn't keep them out of the trap. Can't say if it helps I've caught crabs doing it and gotten skunked doing it.