Still Looking for Bait Launcher, MathGeek?
 

There's a Hawaiian dude in Biloxi that uses compressed air to shoot frozen mullet ~ 300 yds. He let me try it and I shot an onion almost out of sight. Pretty cool.

Those are awesome. We're still working on our design, driven with compressed air. We lost some motivation when the area west of Holly Beach was closed to vehicle traffic meaning we'll have to hand carry the launcher, tank, air compressor, battery, and other accessories from the vehicle to the launching point. Sure, we can still drive on Rutherford beach, but we can easily cast far enough there to catch a steady supply of bull reds.

We still haven't worked out how to launch crabs, which is important when mullet are being picked up quickly by catfish. The way the launcher works, you need to freeze every bait into an ice cylinder with the hook, bait, and sinker in the "ice bullet" and the leader extending out. We can see have a dozen of these pre-prepared, but with the rate that catfish take mullet, the bait needs to be reset much more than a dozen times if fishing with mullet. Crab is much more species specific to redfish, but we haven't figured out how to launch it.

Couldnt you make a crab ice bullet the same way?

Two main issues:

1. A bait cannon launching frozen mullet can be made with 2" diameter PVC pipe and stabilized with a weight-forward ice bullet design and a total projectile weight of less than 8 ounces. Crabs are bigger, requiring a 3" diameter PVC pipe. This increases the cross sectional area of the tube and the projectile by more than a factor of two, greatly increasing the size of the air reservoir, the valve, the weight, etc. Air drag is also greatly increased. Getting similar distances with a crab launcher will be much more difficult.

2. Frozen crab has never been as good a bait for us as fresh crab. There is not a lot of motivation to overcome all the above challenges to launch an inferior bait. We're trying to come up with something that would effectively function as a sabot or patch (as in muzzleloaders) that would allow launching fresh crab 200+ yards. Need something that would melt or be biodegradable so as not to pollute. Need inexpensive also.

Maybe a chum like finger jello instead of ice.

What about using camping toilet paper for packing its biodegradable.

Make a giant slingshot or a trebuchet.

Never seen these get past 100 yards, and trebuchets are big and heavy, not exactly what the kids want to carry from the car to the shoreline.

Attach a crab to potatoe and launch both. rig it to where the crab would come off when it hit the water.

This is a great idea. Use a spud as the sabot/wad. Thanks! A whole live crab might even survive the ride.

How about an Ice bullet with only the leader through it. The hook the crab and hook to the leader before you load.

Put the crab in a pantyhose tie it off and cut the end off. Then hook through the pantyhose. This might keep more meat and gut from flying out.

The Biloxi dude had a 3" model and a 2" model. 100 psi, 15 gallon air reservoir, 1/4 turn brass ball valve, but it was big and heavy. He had it mounted in the back of his truck with a battery powered air compressor. He didn't use fresh crab. He did recommend only 20# test line. Said he spooled a huge spinning reel once when using 40# line. I'll bet that was exciting to watch. Hopefully just a loud pop and not a zing there goes the whole rig.