Holly Beach Bounties
 

Spent the weekend at Holly Beach and laid the smack down on the crabs. Probably caught 30 dozen between us and a couple other families that were were with.

Steamed 5 dozen last night for to finish the weekend:

- in the basket put a layer of crabs, layer of seasoning, layer of crabs, layer of seasoning (I use it sparingly)
- in the 80qt pot I put 12oz beer, 12oz vinegar, 24oz water, juice from 8 lemons, 1/4 or 1/2 small bottle of liquid boil, and the crushed beer can centered on the bottom (or anything to prop the basket up out of the water, yet not so much you can't close the lid)
--- Steam for 20 minutes then pull them out to cool ----


This is how Eric at TheCajunRivierra.com does it and it's perfect. If your looking for a low cost option down in Holly Beach/Cameron he has campers for rent and is a great dude that will give you the shirt off his back. I grew up down the road from him.

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And this is what happened to the leftovers, don't hate on that egg in there either... I drop them in everything, even chili


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This is where we stayed in late Feb/early March when we laid the smack on the bull redfish. Odds are that if the crabs are running on the beach, so are the bull reds.

I went and tried them for about an hour Sunday morning, conditions were great too. I forgot my bait crabs at the dock in haste, and was out there with store bought finger mullet - soaked them for a bit and only managed a few big gaftop, the 3 boys I had with me had a blast reeling them in on my light tackle which is all I could ask for. One of them fought so long that they l got to wear themselves out on it before we got it to the boat.

I believe I was fishing spot number 5 on your map, thanks for your How To guides on catching big nasties!

Last spring and summer the bulls preferred crab at the jetties and tended to come in waves. It might be slow for an hour or two, but then it would turn on and we'd put a bunch in the box quickly.

The spot between the W jetty and the buoy we call the "drum hole" because it is a bit deeper there due to scouring by outgoing currents rounding the jetty. If you have sonar, you want to be right over the hole, but it is about half-way between the end of the rock line and the buoy (N-S) and 75 feet W of the rock line. Outgoing tides are the best at this spot. We like to drop a few lines straight down into the hole and then cast a couple of lines out to the W into the shallower water on the bottom above the hole. (The hole is 20-25 ft deep. The water W of the hole is 14 ft deep.)

If the "drum hole" doesn't produce in 45 minutes or so, we usually move to the W cut, about 150 feet W of the rock line and 75 ft S of the break in the rocks. We throw out 6 crabs in different directions from the boat and hold on. This spot is more sheltered in SE winds, so we fish it more often.

We've come up empty on bull reds at the jetties exactly once, and we put a dozen big gafftops in the box that day, including a couple top ten LA records.

Those crabs look Awesome.. I will be down in Venice mid May for week...... I hope I find a few there....

Looks good, i'm definitely trying that next time.